Ahoy! I have returned from a research trip aboard Holland America’s Nieuw Amsterdam. That’s a boat. Or a ship. I had never been on a cruise ship before and, if I’m being totally honest, I’ve never really had any desire to go chugging around on the ocean. It just seems kind of dangerous. But this cruise was different. It was a week long clothing-optional bounce around the Caribbean. So, yeah, like, everyone was naked on the ship. Except the crew.
I was lucky that my wife joined me so we could re-enact that iconic scene from Titanic only as two middle-aged people in the nude. Good times! Why did I do this? Because the deadline for my new non-fiction book Naked at Lunch: A Reluctant Nudist’s Adventures in an Anti-Textile World is looming. Where else can you get a total immersion in nudist culture than on a boat full of nudists?