Renting Jet Skis in the Bahamas Part 2
a.k.a. Surviving the "Shark" Encounter

I arrive at the beach, approximately 15 - 20 minutes into my 1 hour (plus 10 bonus minutes) ride. GoldTooth grins big and asked me if I had a good time. "I'm not even close to done with my hour yet" I practically yell at him, "this thing says it's low on gas". GoldTooth kind of frowns and tells me not to worry about that and to go back out and finish my hour.

So the three of us headed back toward Eddie Murphy Island at a pretty good clip, me in the lead. I glance back occasionally to make sure everyone is with me, and as I get to "the point" and glance back I notice only 1 jet ski behind me, its riders trying to get my attention.   We quickly come to the realization that our other rider, my daughter, who was riding single, has gone missing.   I do a 180 and crank up my jet ski to as fast as I dared. Soon I see a candidate, 2 jet skis stopped in the water. One of them is my daughter, the other a nice guy who stopped to help. Whether he is just a nice guy or saw an opportunity to impress a damsel in distress I don't know. Either way it was nice that he stopped. He seemed to know jet skis enough to determine that she was out of gas.

Since probably 10 minutes have passed since she ran out - and no one watching in case we needed help has arrived - I head back to the shark lair. I pull up on the beach and there's GoldTooth asking me if I had a good time. "NO!" I shout, "one of our jet skis is out of gas and stranded!". So someone takes my jet ski and heads out to help. Now I'm spending part of my $100 jet ski ride standing on the beach with my rider; our second jet ski is just arriving at the beach with her rider. She happens to be on "Slick's" jet ski and so begins the next chapter of the drama.

Slick now wants his jet ski back so he can rent it to the next guy waiting. I protest that not only is our hour not even close to used up, but our bonus 10 minutes besides. He says that "the boss" may have offered me an extra 10 minutes for the jet ski I was on, but this other jet ski is his personally owned jet ski and he is only giving me the hour. "Fine", I say, but that hour isn't close to up yet. I told him we left at 2:20 and it's now about quarter to 3. He emphatically responds "No, Sir!" you left at 2:10 and promptly pulls out his cell phone and shows me the time on it.

Ok, fine, I know my watch is 5 minutes fast and he probably starts the clock when his slippery hands grabbed the C-note from "the boss", but we still have time left and I want it. So he sends us back out on his "personally-owned jet ski" to get our time, not caring that we originally thought we might get to "ride together!" with all 3 jet skis.

(This was when we were treated to the fight scene. Two guys began viciously fighting, one of whom was shoving handfuls of sand down the throat of what seemed to be the victim while at the same time shoving his head under a jet ski.  Two guys on each of those two hastily began trying to pull them apart. This was the only time when all of the sharks appeared cohesive in that they slowly came to the realization that this was probably bad for business and therefore should intercede.)

By this time the other jet ski has returned with the crippled one in tow and another set of 2 of us head out on the good one. From here on, we only have 2 jet skis, not the 3 we paid for.

This time it seemed prudent to stay close. Not only was one of our family left stranded on the beach near the shark lair, and who knows how much gas we have (probably not much),  but there also were some ominous clouds approaching.

Finally, we pull back up to the beach and end our jet ski "adventure". Slick is happy to get his personally-owned jet ski back and quite frankly I would have loved to give it to him in a particular part of his anatomy; but being terribly outnumbered and in a foreign country I wisely remained calm. My watch said 3:05 (5 minutes fast, remember), a full 10 minutes short of the time paid for. Let's don't even mention the bonus 10 minutes, ok? So Slick wants me to shake hands and not be mad (there was more dialog between us that I am sparing you). I tell him "Yeah, sure". Then I ask him what time his precious cell phone says it is. This time he holds it so I can't see it (as if I'm the one from the 3rd world country) and says (with a toothy smile) "3:10".

"Like heck", I respond with a bit of glare in my eye. And we walked off the beach ever so glad they didn't take credit cards, as they may have tempted me to have used one. Who knows what that could have led to.