Getting off the cruise ship proved to be surprisingly easy. We checked out of the cruise ship, got a stamp in our passport, and then walked straight through at customs (I'm guessing they're pretty confident no one is bringing in anything too scandalous when they cruise to the island). Marc assured us that it was his winning smile that got us all through customs so easily.
A short bus ride across the island (less than like 10 miles across) took us to our resort, the Island Seas Resort. We dropped off our baggage, but check in wasn't until 3 PM. That meant we had to just hang out around the resort for a while. Translation: BAHAMAS BEACH!
We went down to the beach (the resort looks directly out into the Caribbean to the south) and played around all morning and afternoon. We probably went out at about 10:30, and headed in just before 3. I loved the sand so much at the beach there. It was this gorgeous white powder that wasn't grainy at all. The water was beautiful, just the right temperature. Unfortunately, it was a bit story that day, so the wind and waves were kicking up enough sand that the water wasn't super-clear. We still went out swimming and had a lot of fun in the water (Laura and Cicely even swam out and joined us, overcoming a great amount of fear to do so).A group went exploring and found an amazing Conch shell. The cove where the resort was ended in a jetty which lined a canal heading inland, and there was all sorts of wonderful wild- and sea-life to be found in the area. I went with group #2 exploring, and we didn't get to find anything quite as cool as the first group had.
After that exploration, I threw my t-shirt back on (it was about 1:30 at that point). The last major activity of the afternoon was to bury Shantel. Originally, she sat in the middle of the outer wall of a castle's defenses that Chris had started. Once we started filling it in around her, Cicely (the artist of the group) envisioned a giant shark head, bursting out of the sand to envelop Shantel (whose head would be the only part showing). After a good hour of constructing and sculpting, I was really impressed with the result. It legitimately looked like some sort of monster was going to be the end of Shantel.As we headed in to the rooms, it became evident just how long we'd been out in the sun. Everyone was hot and tired and a bit cranky. As things cooled down, everyone realized just how strong the sun had been. The sun burns started looking worse and worse as the afternoon wore on. There were some seriously nasty burns. I had started a week and a half before the cruise and had gone out tanning in my backyard 3 or 4 times, so I had a good base tan at the start of the cruise. Even still, my arms and face did end up with a little bit of red. Cicely's back blistered and Marc's legs never really recovered much the rest of the trip.
Despite the sudden collection of injuries, we decided to head in to town after everyone had showered. The shuttle to Port Lucaya only runs once an hour, so we headed in at 4:30 in order to have some time there before we'd have to catch the last shuttle back at 6:40. Part of the group was ready for dinner right away and had dinner at an island cuisine restaurant, but Marc, Shantel, and I wanted to go exploring. We did some looking around, and decided to explore the little souvenir shops that were set up. I got a couple of good things, and so did Marc and Shantel. It's interesting to see how different people handle marketplace situations. Marc is an aggressive haggler- he'll work any price down. Shantel doesn't like to haggle at all, so she just looks around till she finds the best price for what she wanted (most booths all have the same items anyways). I am very much a deal-maker. I don't like to just try and straight-up work a price down. I try to get to the situation where I can say "the price for each is $3? I'll give you $10 for 4." That involves purchasing multiple things, but in the end, I feel like everyone wins.
After our little shopping trip, we didn't have enough time for a sit-down dinner (which I was fine with), so we went over to the Greek restaurant and grabbed Gyros to go. We met up with the rest of the group, and headed back to the resort. While the others decided to chill in the rooms and watch movies and TV, I headed out to get some things done using the resort's wifi out by the pool. Eventually, the others came out and got in the pool, and I let everyone check their emails and such on my computer as I went swimming as well. A walk down the beach showed us just how many stars there were once we got outside of the lights of the resort. We sat and watched the stars for a while, listening to the surf. That may be one of my favorite things in the world.
Day 2, Friday, in the Bahamas, I let myself wake up naturally without an alarm. It was before 9, and no on else was stirring, so I decided to try a run in to Freeport. The capital was only a $4 taxi ride from Port Lucaya, but we weren't sure if there was much worth doing in there. Rather than risk everyone's time and money, I just decided to jog in and check it out myself. I like to jog, but I really did bite off more than I should have with this one. It was about 3.5 miles each way, and then I went about a half mile around town. I'm used to ~3 mile runs, so this was a lot to try. I made it, and realized that there wasn't a lot of stuff for us to see downtown. There were more shops, and a few pretty buildings, but mostly just a lot of the same. By the time that I made it back to the resort, I was kind of exhausted and everyone was just about ready to head out to the beach for a bit. I got cleaned up then went out to join most of them (those with the worst sunburns were unable to stay out in the sun). After lunch, we headed in to the port again. Marc, Shantel and I wanted to look into the options of renting a sail boat or possibly snorkeling, but by the time we got there, it was already getting windy and stormy enough that they were closing things down for the day.
We came back to the shopping harbor and did some more looking around. I got directed to Ray "the guy with Rasta style", in order to find steel drums. I was hoping to find one like the drum I played in 6th grade. When I saw them, I realized that I wasn't going to find anything even close. They were small (either ~6" or ~12" in diameter) and very much untuned. I played with the idea of getting one of the larger ones and trying to make it usable, but I realized that really wouldn't be an option. They still looked cool, so I went ahead and bought a small one as a souvenir.
We decided to do dinner at the Greek restaurant, and I got the eponymous Zorbas platter. A couple of the people in the group hadn't ever had baklava, so I order some for us all to share. It was really good food. Afterwards, we went so Shantel and Laura could get drinks in a coconut and then toured the harbor looking at multi-million dollar yachts. The girls talked to the captain of one of them, a tanned guy about my age with a strong Australian accent and I realized at that moment that there is no competing with such an accent. Even I liked listening to him talk about the boat and where the owner had him sail.
That evening we went out to watch the sun set from the beach at the resort. The tide had gone out, so there was tons of room for a bunch of fun drawings in the sand. I meant to call it an early night, but I started reading my book around 11, and then realized just before midnight that I had to finish the last of it before I could go to bed. With that, I was still up well past 1 in the morning, much later than I'd wanted to be up.
You're only on vacation once, and so I decided to go for broke on this. I got up Saturday morning before the sunrise to meet Shantel and Cicely out on the shore. There were some clouds out, but we still got to see the sun rise- a most beautiful sight. That, however, meant a long day was in store. Check out was at 10, but the shuttle to the cruise ship wasn't until 1.
So, after a bit, Marc asked Shantel if she wanted to take over manning the sail and rudder. We made it a ways further until we got parallel to the wind and died. After Marc got us started again, we decided to turn. As we turned in to the wind, there was a big gust that instantly filled the sail. It put so much strain on the sail that the mast broke off of the joint holding it to the catamaran. There was a guy from the booth who was out pulling some girls on a parasail. He swung by us, and yelled at Marc for trying to do something that I didn't recognize the term for. He told us to wait and he'd come pick us up.He took us to a floating platform where a boat from the shore brought us in to land again. In total, we were only out on the water for about an hour, and sailing only about half of that. When we got in, we were informed that there was about $50 of damage that we had to pay for. I'm not sure if that's true at all, but I don't know enough about sailboats to argue well. After trying to working with them on the number, we paid them and left. No one was going snorkeling that morning because the waves were too high still, so we had find something else to entertain us for a few hours.
Shantel and I decided that, since we were already near the big resort at the port there, we would just use the big outdoor, life-sized chess board to play a game. She was chess club president, so I knew I didn't have much of a chance. Pretty early on in my opening, I made a couple moves without looking far enough ahead and lost some pretty significant ground. From then on, I was pretty much staunching the blood flow. I wasn't too successful at that and lost after a pretty inglorious endgame. I like the idea of a chessboard that size, and it seems like it'd be pretty easy to do as a do-it-yourself project.
I was hungry, so we went in to the harbor and I found a little stand with traditional Bahamian (pronounced buh-HAY-me-ann) dishes. I got Conch salad which was tomatoes and onions and citrus and peppers all in a bunch of lime juice. Then there was a bunch of little bits of conch mixed in. The salad had a good strong flavor and the conch didn't really taste like anything, but wow did it have a texture. It was small and a bit rubbery. I wasn't a huge fan, but I'd paid $8 for it, so I finished it off when Shantel and Marc said they were done.
We went back to the resort and met the others, ready to head back to the cruise ship. One last drive on the left side of the road brought us back to the cruise ship. It was a bit sad to leave behind the beautiful sandy beaches and nice resort that I was just starting to feel comfortable in. Check in took a while (all of the resort shuttles were showing up around that time), but we were still early enough to get a reservation in the nice (but not super-nice) restaurant! We dropped our stuff in our cabin and found out that, this time, we got room with a port hole. It made the tiny little cabin (same lay-out as before) seem so much larger. After gorging ourselves at the lunch buffet (breakfast had been a small meal a long time ago for most) we split up. There were a ton of fun things going on, but I just had to lay down and take a nap.
I napped for about an hour, and then decided to get to experience at least a few things. I went over to the scavenger hunt, but they had started cleaning up 2 minutes before I got there because no one had shown up. If I had gotten there just a little bit earlier, I would have been the winner by default! I tried to go listen to the steel drum music, but that was just ending as I got there. The name-that-tune had been replaced by pre-recorded music. Finally, I got to the Family Feud game just before it started. It was fun to sit there and actually be in the audience for a pretty realistic knock-off of the show. One by one, everyone in my group showed up and sat with me for the game show. If they'd done more rounds, we would've rocked it!
It was time for dinner, so we all got into our one nice outfit and headed to The Crystal Dining Room. The food offered there was more or less the same as the restaurant we'd eaten at the first night, but rather than half-buffet/half-service, this was a full, five-course, sit-down meal. It was all fancy with real crystal goblets (Marc tried them out, and yes, the did make a sound as he ran his finger around the edge), full-service wait staff (our server was Marlon, and he was a really funny guy), and chandeliers. It took 90 minutes to eat dinner, but it was such pleasant company and good food that I didn't mind at all. In fact, it was kind of nice to not be able to rush through a meal, but to have to stop and take my time.
After dinner, we went up to the Ocean Breeze Lounge for dancing. It was a super small dance floor, and they only played Salsa and Merengue music, but it was still fun to be dancing. It was so strange to feel the boat moving on the ocean under your feet as you danced. Shantel and I managed to find a couple of songs to chacha and rumba to as well. After an hour or so, we headed down for the shows. First was the magic show. The magic wasn't incredible, but the overall show was fun and enjoyable. I decided to order a drink while we were in the lounge. There was one called a "Wannabe" which I got off the non-alcoholic page. It was pina colada, strawberries, bananas, mango and pineapple with whipped cream on top. I enjoyed it, and it was good enough that Shantel ordered one and Laura got a pina colada. After the magician, there was an acrobatic duo that was incredible. They did the hanging from a rope while the other person swings it around act, and then an amazing balancing act. Finally, there was a comedian. he started out great, but things progressed to sex jokes very quickly and that was that- I was out.
Shantel and I did some more dancing upstairs, Laura got dropped on the dance floor, and then the group spent some time out on the deck in the evening breeze. We decided to explore looking for more dancing. The lounge where there was dancing our first night had chosen karaoke this time, and the pool deck up on top was too wet to dance safely. We were on our way to the piano bar, when we saw that desserts were half off, so we Shantel and I got a strawberry cheesecake and a "chocolate pyramid". We were both sick by the time we were done with them. Eventually, we headed back to the girls' cabin and found the rest of them there. I collected Chris, and he and I headed back to our cabin.
I decided to shower and pack at night, so I'd be ready to go early the next morning. I was in bed just a bit after 11, which was good because 7:30 came early. We all got up, not quite rested all the way, and cleared out of the cabin. We had one last all-you-care-to-eat meal, and then left the ship. Customs went pretty easily, and we were back on American soil. We weren't sure what time the cruise would get in as we were planning the trip, so I'd gotten a late flight, just to be safe. So I had 10 hours from disembarking to flight :/
We went to the beach north of Palm Beach, and took some fun pictures there, then headed in to town. A part of the group wanted Subway, and Shantel led the charge towards a sushi restaurant. It turns out that that sushi bar was closed, so we went and had Italian in stead. Finally, it was time to head to the airport. They dropped the four of us leaving from West Palm Beach International off, and took the rental car back to Ft. Lauderdale. It really didn't sink in that the vacation was ending until we split up from the other half of the group.
This has been such a wonderful vacation, it's going to definitely hold a special place in my memory.
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