Nassau, Bahamas

THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s inaugural cruise set sail yesterday afternoon out of Fort Lauderdale and this morning we’re sitting in port on the Westerdam looking out on the breakers crashing just on the other side of the harbor. The water is turquoise, the little Bahamian houses are cotton-candy pink, and as I was taking my run on the promenade deck early this morning I realized that we’re in paradise. How good is it here in the Caribbean? I’ve already forgotten about the frigid weather in Washington, all the work piled up on my desk at the office, and the Eagles’ crushing defeat last night (which I watched on a monster-screen TV in the Queen’s Lounge with Victorino Matus, Mike Murphy, and a couple hundred other new friends).

I’ve already been pretty amazed at how interesting most of our cruisers are. Last night at dinner my table had a hysterical couple from Crawford, a couple from Idaho who had worked in the Senate during the one year Republicans held it before the 1994 realignment, and a couple from Sacramento who run their own neighborhood newspaper. The company here is hard to beat.