For the fancy dress evening on the ship cruising in the Caribbean, my table-mates and I wanted to do something different. So they dressed up as Hawaiian dancing girls, while I looked like a Venetian gondolier with my long hair scraped up under a sombrero, and sporting a striped top and pants.
In my hand I held a broom handle, to which the three girls were tied with string. We acted out a cameo of them being misbehaved puppets, which I - as puppeteer - tried to keep under control.
Having acted out our part, we went back to our cabins, changed, and returned in time for the announcements on who had won the prizes. We had been voted first.
Going up to the stage to collect our prize, we wondered why the captain - who was handing out the prizes - seemed to be hovering.
"But where is the man in your group - the puppet master?" he finally enquired.
When I explained that had been me, he looked taken aback. "But what did you do with those?" he enquired with a nod towards my considerable feminine curves, now ensconced in a vivid, low-cut dress.
"It's amazing what you can do with some bandage as strapping, captain," I joked.
Italian charmer to the core, he responded, "I like you much better like this."
On the same cruise was a gentleman who everyone referred to as "the sun god" because he stood on deck from morning to night in a skimpy bathing costume, with his hands locked behind his back and his bronzed face turned up to the sun, as if in worship.
A real dish, and a sublime dancer, every night he had 10 women at his table in the lounge, all vying for his attention and waiting for him to sweep them around the dance floor. This bevy of acolytes were the envy of every single woman on board.
One evening he left his female entourage, walked across to where we were sitting, and extended his hand in invitation to me. His little party looked daggers at me, then smirked as the band struck up a tango.
It soon became obvious that I knew as much about the tango as a duck knew about rocket science.
I was mortified. Why had he chosen to ask me for the one dance at which I was useless? He gripped my hand firmly, and placed another steadily around my back.
To his amusement, out of sheer nervousness, my thumb began jumping in his hand.
"Relax," he said firmly. "Just follow me."
To my amazement I was able to do so with aplomb. Everyone cleared the floor to watch the show.
It just goes to show that, given the right partner, anything can be achieved.
But I didn't hold that thought. For the nights after that, I avoided the dance lounge and skulked on deck just in case the sun god approached me again and this time I blotted my copybook.