By Donald B. Ardell, Ph.D.
In 20 years,
my "ministrations for wellness" have taken me on many unusual
and adventuresome journeys. Yes,
preaching to the choir of true believers and a few worseness infidels has
been a blessed calling of amazing delights. I have, for
example, saved souls for wellness
for months at a time at a world famous ski
resort in Utah (Snowbird) and on
a riverboat cruise with Mark Twain (played by
Bill Linn) from St. Louis to Hannibel,
proselytized for wellness on multiple
junkets around Australia with Crocodile
Donovan, moved the masses to come
forward and declare for lifestyle
righteousness during annual wellness
festivals in Stevens Point and
conducted at least 500 one-man whole-person
fitness revivals in cities and
towns throughout America and Canada, plus a bit
of preaching in Guam, Malaysia,
Norway and New Zealand. Yes, it's been an
exciting ministry, but it got even
more stimulating a short time ago when I
accepted an invitation to bare
my soul, so to speak, by ministering to 900
nudists on a luxury cruise! Yes,
I went on a nude cruise. I figured, "Hey, what
have I got to be ashamed of?" I
couldn't think of anything. (No wise cracks,
please.)
We departed Miami
and made eight-hour stops in Nassau, Jamaica and Grand Cayman Islands over
the course of a seven-day journey. Most of the time, obviously, was spent
at sea, which suited me fine--most of the islands in this area are impoverished
tropical backwaters devoted to the sale of t-shirts. They are also
overpriced and undercultured, way
too hot, plagued by crime, polluted and
tacky--and they have too many tourists,
not to mention natives. But, let's get
back to the cruise.
This cruise was
pretty much the same as any other (I've been on four), except
that people were naked nearly all
the time! It may sound preposterous to you
but trust me on this: You
get used to it. (Before long, you stop fretting
about what not to wear today.)
However, prior to reflections on nudists and,
most important, their reactions
to my wellness talks (that is what you want to
read about, isn't it?), I should
review the similarities to other cruises.
These included:
Great food and
service at breakfast/lunch and dinner with three banquets
between each of the main sumptuous
feasts. All meals were distinguished not
just by fabulous tastes but also
by wild consumption excesses by cruise patrons
of total calories and particularly
calories from the four food groups (fat,
alcohol, caffeine and sugar). Of
course, nobody was forced to consume
recklessly; anyone disciplined
enough to stick with fruits and veggies, mineral
water and vitamin pills was free
to do so. If anyone like this were on board, I
didn't spot her. However, it was
rumored that many nudists awake for the
totally gratuitous 2 a.m. banquet
were ordering Diet Cokes with their meats and
pastries.
Friendly, happy
people. This was true for the crew as
well as the nude vacationers. The
only instance of clear and unmistakable
unfriendliness towards people who
had the bizarre desire to run around starkers
occurred when the ship was anchored
about a mile off Grand Cayman Island.
Apparently, the local Nazi authorities,
upon learning that a shipload of
nudists were out there in their
very proper harbor (unseen, of course, from
shore), gave orders that everyone
on board had to cover up immediately else the
vessel would be ordered out to
sea! This bit of "family values mentality"
seemed a bit incongruous from officials
of an island best known for banks
sheltering drug profits from properly
attired and suitably dignified smugglers.
Of course, nobody on board had
any problem with the idea of being ordered out
of local waters, except those whose
spouses had left the ship for visits to
local beaches! Thus, the idyllic
repose of the naked ones was rudely
interrupted. Cruise patrons had
a big laugh about the incident and were pleased
when the time came to sail away
from this righteous island and "normalcy" was
reestablished.
Great entertainment,
interesting programs, luxurious accommodations and, most
significantly, a gym. The gym was
always packed but then, it was a very small
gym.
The pleasures
of being at sea with ample time to read, ponder the meaning of
life and go on about wellness to
hundreds of highly interested people. (On this
cruise, a nervous presenter could
not employ the old speaker's trick of
imagining folks sitting out there
in their underwear.)
Finally, it has
to be noted that this cruise, like others, was attractive
simply because a week at sea provides
ample opportunities to meet new
folks--some of whom are bound to
be a lot of fun, as well as to get away for a
spell, enjoy the tranquility (assuming
the seas are calm) and mystery of the
ocean and relate on a new level
with whomever you chose to invite as your
traveling companion. These are
among the attractions of any cruises and this
one was no exception.
With these basics
out of the way, permit me to reveal what it was like spending
a week at sea in search of converts
for wellness under these unusual
circumstances. While I did not
conduct double-blind cross-over trials of a
longitudinal, latitudinal and dignified
nature, this has never inhibited me in
the past from making wild and unsupported
assertions in an irreproducible
fashion--and it's not about to
do so now. Furthermore, I take comfort in the
immortal words of a herpetologist/parasitologist
friend who used to say, on hot
sunny afternoons, "Let's get naked
and criticize each other."
Here is my major
finding: A ship populated with 900 nudists is just like a
boatload of 900 non-nudists, except
that these folks are obviously less
inhibited than the average citizen.
But, they come in all shapes, sizes and
colors (I'm referring to the people)
and, most importantly, their lifestyles,
personalities, opinions, preferences
and everything else seem to represent all
the variations and shadings found
in the general population.
This noted, here
are a few of my "scientific discoveries" or perhaps inspired
opinions. For starters, I was amazed
at the number of folks who, paradoxically,
love to display their bodies but
do not take very good care of them. There were
large numbers of overweight people
on this cruise and, much much worse, a
disproportionate population of
smokers. I asked many fit-looking non-smokers
about this but nobody had a sensible
explanation for the enigmatic
contradiction. Of course, no wellness
promoter would want anyone to be ashamed
of his or her body, but I had the
sense that an exception might be made in this
case. Some people would be better
off with a bit less self-acceptance if it
could be married to a resolution
to do something about their health problems,
like exercise more/eat less and
substitute positive avocational passions for
mindless self-destructive high-risk
behaviors (i.e., smoking). But, wellness is
a positive approach so enough on
this. On the horrors of smoking and paradox of
couch potatoism, I held my tongue
except to promise, in the context of my
lectures, that my wellness way
would lead to the promised land! (This is,
before they got to die anyway,
but in a much healthier state following a
briefer period of deterioration.)
Furthermore,
I made a major discovery that could, if I play my cards right,
lead to a Nobel prize or free t-shirt
or something. It concerns my favorite
wellness topic, namely, how to
tell when you reach middle-age: You're middle
age when you sense people are dressing
you with their eyes.
If you'd like
to take a nude cruise or simply obtain colorful brochures about
clothes-free galas at sea, call
"Bare Necessities" travel agency in Austin,
Texas. The phone number is (800)
743-0450 or (512) 469-0179; the address is
1802 West 6th Street, Suite B,
Austin, TX 78703. Ask for Nancy.
Oh, by the way,
maybe you're wondering if I presented my lectures on wellness
in the spirit of things, that is,
"suitably attired" or unattired, as the case
might be. Are you wondering? If
you recall the formula 7/38/55 dealing with the
proportion of the elements of a
speech that affect comprehension (seven percent
of what folks remember is based
on the verbal element of the speech; 38 and 55
percent relate to vocal and visual
elements, respectively), then you must know
that I elected to remain fully
clothed. Had I done otherwise, it's unlikely
that members of my audience would
have been able to recall even seven percent
of my verbal message!
Would I go on
another nude cruise? Sure. Would I do anything different next
time? Yes, I'd go sooner and stay
later. Oh, and one more thing: I'd work even
harder on my presentations and
less on my physical condition! You see, if the
speeches were slightly better and
my figure just a little worse, maybe I could
get the audience up to eight percent
on verbal comprehension.
About the author: Donald
B. Ardell is the author of many books on wellness, his latest
being 14 DAYS TO WELLNESS (New World Library,
Novato, CA. 1999). He is a weekly
host on HBO's internet wellness show (see www.yourhealth.com)
and publishes the quarterly ARDELL WELLNESS REPORT. For a sample
copy, send a SASE to Don at 345 Bayshore Blvd., # 414, Tampa, FL
33606. Don is at "donardell@earthlink.net"