Half Moon Cay - Bahamas

March 9th-10th
At Sea/Half Moon Cay

I’m a week late on writing this post, so the sea day simply blends in with all the other sea days I just experienced crossing the Atlantic, so I’m going to jump ahead to Half Moon Cay.
Half Moon Cay is a private island owned by Holland America, a sister cruise line to P&O, and as far as Caribbean islands are concerned, this one had the most picture perfect, beautiful beach I’ve seen. We arrived on a perfect day, everything about the weather was just right to spend the day on the beach, which was about all the island was. The island itself was shaped like a crescent moon, hence the name, with the interior “moon” edge all perfectly groomed beach area. There was no trash, no debris, nothing but perfectly white sand and the most perfect blue water you can imagine. I left the ship with John, the other sax player, we walked along the beach for a ways till we had gotten out of the first 200 yards of passenger-packed beach area, and set up a few chairs where we were out of reach from 99% of the passengers. We then went for a run down the beach just to get warmed up and do something healthy, and swam after that, usual beach stuff.
I had been told that they rented sailboats on the island, which actually had me quite excited because I figured there’d be nothing better than renting a sailboat and doing my own boating for a while. It wasn’t hard to find the hut that was renting the gear, where they were offering hobbie-cats at about $50 an hour, way more than I wanted to pay. I told John we’d come back towards the end of the day, after we knew they hadn’t rented anything, with the hopes of working out a better price. We then did our beach thing I already mentioned, got some food at the BBQ, and then returned to the hut to see how my negotiation skills were developing. I again asked for the price, and was again told $50. This is at about 2:00, wherein everyone had to be back on the ship by around 3:30 (last tender departure). I asked for a crew discount…she said no, she doesn’t give discounts. I then offered $25 for the hour, she said no, and reiterated the discount policy. I reminded her she hadn’t rented a single boat all day and I was ready to give her money, she still said no after checking with her boss, a similarly large black woman who spoke in indecipherable mumbles. I then asked them if they liked making money and if they had any interest in making money at all that day…which was followed with no comment from the peanut gallery, and on that cue, my friends and I left for the bar. It was a disappointment, but there was no way the boat was worth what they wanted and they had no leverage in the situation, just sheer economic stupidity. Who knows, maybe they’re subsidized by the cruise ship and they get paid to sit there regardless of what rents, but my guess is no. Anyway, that was the biggest excitement of the day…woohoo…
We then went to the beach bar, my friends got some drinks and I borrowed someone’s goggles and flippers to further enjoy the perfect conditions. It was really odd swimming at this beach, simply because when you went under water and looked around, all you could see was a perfect blue ceiling and white sand that continued on forever. No weeds, no rocks, just the occasional silver fish, it was an underwater picture of perfection, a perfect way to say goodbye to the Caribbean and greet two Atlantic crossings (out of the next 19 days, 16 are sea days). As always, thanks for reading!