It’s our first day on a two-week cruise. I wake in the middle of the night and stumble by flashlight past the narrow space between the foot of the bed and the wall of the cabin, negotiating with difficulty the tight corner where the edge of the TV stand juts into the room leaving only inches for the sleepy nighttime passage to the (let’s use the nautical term here) head. My cell phone, left plugged in on the desk, displays the time: 5am. On the way back to bed, my groggy mind forms a dangerous thought:

I wonder what it’s like outside at five in the morning.

My side of the bed is less than one foot from the balcony door, and so it is not a long leap from thinking to doing. I open the door and go outside. The air is humid, warm, and very fresh—way better than the air-conditioned sterility inside.

The sky is black. Light spilling from the ship illuminates the water swirling rapidly by. There are distant lights on the horizon: I wonder what island. Stars shine overhead.  Stars! I bet if I could get out into a place with nothing overhead there’d be a gazillion stars. Deck 12, for example, with its running track.

This is ridiculous, I think. It’s five in the middle-of-the-night morning, for heaven’s sake! I go back to bed.

Ten minutes later, I’m up, dressed, and out of the cabin. I learn that the island sliding by to starboard is Cuba.

Deck 12 has a fine running track, and it is completely deserted. It’s also distressingly well lit. There are no visible stars. The warm, windy air is wonderful. Birds are everywhere. They seem somehow trapped in the ship’s gravity. They fly in front of me as I run, but they won’t—or can’t—fly aside.

The track is too short; it circles around only about halfway to the stern of the ship. Once or twice around, and I run down the seven flights of stairs to the track on deck 5, which I’ve heard is longer and I hope will be a little darker. The freedom of movement on the deserted ship feels great. As I run forward on the starboard side of the ship it gets a little too dark. Good thing I brought a flashlight (yes, I really did) because now I need it. There are no lights. The deck peters out into a staircase, which has been closed off with plastic netting, but the netting has been taken down on one side. Closed or open? Hard to tell. Open, I decide, and up I go.

The bow of Deck 6 is unlit, and it’s really something. Cuba is more rural now, with only a twinkling of occasional lights. Above, the black sky flaunts its promised gazillion stars. On the port side of the ship, distant lightning illuminates clouds in soundless fireworks. The port stairway from Deck 6 to Deck 5 is definitely closed, but the temporary netting is easy to step over. I’ve gotten good at this. I run the Deck 5-Deck 6 circuit several times, then head back up to Deck 12. Definitely not as good. Back to Deck 5.

And then back to Deck 12, where I head to the gym for a workout on the deserted machines. By the time I leave at 6:30 people have started to arrive.

I’ve been up for an hour and a half, and now it’s time to start my day. I feel great.

Happy birthday, Dan! And many happy returns of the day!