And you can read about all of the wedding planning here!
All caught up? Great, we're ready to continue on with Day 4 of our awesome honeymoon cruise:
MAY 4, 2011 - HALF MOON CAY DAY DAY
Tim and I had set our alarm for 7 Am. Our ship was not due to dock at Half Moon Cay (pronounced "Half Moon Key") until 9:AM. We went out on the balcony, and we saw nothing but water. No land yet.
We left our room and walked towards the front of the ship. We knew there was a doorway to go out on the front decks, and we found it! We went out on the front deck, and we couldn't see any land from there either.
Back to our room, we ordered coffee from room service for Tim, and we showered and got dressed for our beach day. Swimsuits and shorts.
Tim's coffee came in 10 minutes, and he had time to enjoy it before it was time to get off the ship. We kept going out on the balcony to check for land, and eventually we saw it. Half Moon Cay!!!!
We pulled close to the island and the ship dropped the anchors. Smaller boats, called tenders, came and pulled up to the side of our ship and began to load things we would need on the island. Because this is Carnival Cruise Line's private island, the ship offloads everything we will need for the day along with some crew members.
I could see we were bringing beer, a pirate and a camera display...All very useful for a day at the beach in the Bahamas
Tim and I watched the crew load the boats for about 30 minutes, and around 9:20, we walked down to deck one and waited in a loooong line for a tender to take us to the island.
The line moved quick once it actually started moving. We got on the tender and were ferried to the island pretty quickly. Tim and I talked to a couple from Florida while we were on the tender. (We loved striking up conversations in the elevators, hallways, etc....we asked everyone where they were from, and if they were having a good time. We thought it was fun to talk to everyone).
We got to the island, and found the place to meet the shuttle bus/truck thing to take us to our cabana. The island was beautiful, and Tim and I were thrilled that we would be spending the day there! We were beginning to understand what this whole caribbean island thing was all about!
This place was absolutely SWEET!!!
Tim and I looked around the cabana and took pictures.
The view from our cabana
I took a floatie mat into the water and spent some time being happy and peaceful.
I believe Tim is relaxed!!
At 12:00, Tim and I went in search of food. Carnival was going to provide us with lunch, but we weren't sure where to go. We wandered around a little bit and came upon a huge open air area where we could see people forming lines. This must be the food!
We waited in line for 5 minutes or so, and then got our lunch. Tim and I filled our plates with Jerk chicken, rice, and fruit and headed back to the cabana with our trays. We didn't want to sit at a picnic table when we had a wonderful cabana to enjoy!
It was a short walk back to the cabana, and we sat at the table and enjoyed THE BEST jerk chicken we would have on the whole vacation! It was SO GOOD!
As we were eating, Norma and Brian and Sandra and Hameed made their way to the cabana. After Tim and I raved about the food, the 4 of them went off to get food too.
See me snorkling??!!! That's my head to the right of Sandra and Norma
The 6 of us spent more time in the cabana together, but soon I was growing impatient to find another geocache.
Tim and I had told our new friends all about geocaching, and we knew there was a cache hidden at the far end of the beach. I was anxious to get down there to look for it, and all that morning I kept looking down toward the far end of the island. I'm not sure what time we left, maybe 1 or 1:30, Tim and I, Brian and Hameed set out to walk down the beach to look for the geocache. Norma and Sandra stayed behind in the cabana.
It was about a mile walk to the far end of the beach. We all walked along the edge of the water, and it was nice to dip in when we got hot.
We followed our clues, and Brian was actually the one to find the cache! He did a great job considering he had never geocached before! We were walking along the beach, looking for a pathway that led up a slight hill, and we were looking for 2 white rocks. Brian spotted the pathway and the 2 rocks, and we all combed the area. Brian moved a few rocks, and there it was! A small box hidden in the rocks with a logbook and several little trade items. There were a lot of coins from different places, and we looked at all of them.
Here are Brian, Hameed and I looking for the cache:
We took an item from the cache, and left several new items. I collect McToys from happy meals just to have the toys to trade. Tim and I brought 4 (small) McToys and although we only took one thing, we left all 4. We signed the log and put everything back how we found it.
There was one more cache to look for at that end of the island, and we looked for it, but sadly we didn't find that one.
Here I am looking behind a fallen tree for the 2nd cache:
We didn't spend too much time looking for it, we were happy with the one we had found, and we began to walk back toward the cabana.
Lucky for me, I brought my snorkle mask and breathing tube thing with me, so I snorkled along the shore almost the whole way back to the cabanna. I loved every minute of it! I had to swim fast to keep up with the guys walking along the shore, but I still managed to find quite a few seashells and small pieces of coral as I swam/snorkled along in knee deep water. Every so often, I would run up on shore and hand Tim my handfulls of shells and coral pieces to put in his pockets.
I also found a conch shell! Yes, I brought it home! By the way, thats one of the huge gallon sized baggies it's laying on, this conch shell is huge! and heavy!
It had a big hole in the side of the shell, so I was certain it was of no use to any sea creatures.
It had a big hole in the side of the shell, so I was certain it was of no use to any sea creatures.
We made it back to the cabana and still had some time to hang out before we had to go catch the tender back to the ship. The 6 of us posed for a picture:
From left to right: Sandra, Tim, Norma, Hameed, Me, Brian
Norma, Brian and I walked toward the pier end of the beach to see if we could find Cassandra and her mom, Mary. No luck, they must have already gone back to the ship.
It was finally time to pack up our things. Tim and I collected our baggie full of sand from the beautiful Half Moon Cay beach and said I goodbye to our wonderful cabana. We s-l-o-w-l-y walked back towards the port, hoping there would be a gift shop to get a magnet.
This is the back of the new Pirate bar:
And inside the Pirate bar:
When we got to the area with the shops, the gift shop was already closed for the day, but there were a few ladies selling small items that were still there. I looked at everything and I couldnt find a magnet, but I improvised and bought a keychain that I could make into a magnet.
Here is our Half Moon Cay keychain that is now a magnet:
We left the shop area and slowly made our way towards the tender. We were in no hurry to leave this wonderful place.
The sand was like powder, the water was crystal clear and SO BLUE!, and the whole beach and island (the parts we saw) were pristine and perfect. It was truely like a paradise island.
We reluctantly boarded the tender to go back to the ship. What a GREAT day we just had! What a beautiful place!
Can you tell I really loved Half Moon Cay?
Norma, Brian and Tim on the tender:
Back onboard the ship: Tim and I took showers and got dressed. We were starving! We were too exausted to deal with dinner in the main dining room, so we went up to the lido deck and went through the buffet line.
We took our trays to the back of the adults only- serenity deck where there were tables under a huge window looking out the back of the ship. It was a beautiful view as we ate, and we could see the bahamas islands all around us as we headed towards the biggest island of Nassau.
After we we finished eating, we walked to the internet cafe so I could message Christina again. It was so nice to be able to be in contact with her almost every night.
We were back in our room by 8:30, and again we were exausted from a long day. Y had turned down our bed while we were gone, and left our FUN TIMES for tomorrow, our chocolates, and an adorable elephant towel animal!
Tim watched TV while I downloaded our pictures from the day.
We were asleep that night by 10:30, we were sooooo tired from so many non-stop days in a row, but we were anticipating a fun day in Nassau tomorrow. We also knew that after Nassau, we would have 2 downtime days in a row!!
*****
Looking for Day 5?? It's HERE!!!!
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