Cruise Day 2: Half moon Cay

At the time we got to the Lido restaurant at deck 9. I felt I was withering away, I hadn’t had any food or water in the last 20 hours. I grabbed a glass of ice tea immediately, drank up….I felt I could think again! Even if the ice tea was a bit weird — it was not sweet. But oh Mama, we were surrounded by food! It was a large buffet restaurant with lots of breakfast food varieties. I couldn’t wait to go through all the food sections — they all looked delicious. Ron and I both had French toast, bacon and grape fruit. I had some extra fruit and salad. The wonderful meal satisfied both my stomach and mood. We noticed that most people around were dressed in beach style. The ship had been at Half moon cay for at least three and half hours. I figured we should get off the ship and get on the beach as soon as possible. Rushed back to room, put on the swim suits under T-shirts and shorts, applied sun block then we were off. Apparently Half moon cay is a small island privately owned by Holland America. The ship dropped anchor in the middle of the sea because there was no pier. We embarked on a tender. On the tender, being so close to the big metal ship, I indeed admired this beautiful piece of human’s work! There was bright funky carribean music playing on the tender, and not very far away, white sand beach and enticing blue sea water waiting for us. The relaxing atmosphere filled the whole tender. I told myself this was indeed called vacation. oh and I wouldn’t have a second thought about spending my whole year here.

 

Ron brought his heavy camera with him. We walked on the beach, took some shots. Soon we found the camera was a burden — we wanted to swim, who would take care of the camera then? We walked half way along the beach and didn’t find any locker room. The solution arose and it was that we took turn to swim. Ron went to swim first while I lay in a hammock. The sky was so blue but the sun light was a bit strong. Soon I became bored and wished I had my novel with me.

Ron does love water! He was a bit reluctant to leave the water and come back, I felt. Finally at 15 minutes before our parasailing excursion, I got my turn to taste the sea water. The result was pretty disappointing. I stepped into the water but when the water reached my waist I gave up. Ron was laughing at me and when I saw people playing in the water I knew I was stupid. But it was damn cold! I think I have an excuse, I believe my body temperature is usually higher than others. 😛

Anyway one o’clock was our parasailing time. We waited at the dock for about half an hour. The parasailing boat finally returned and we embarked on it after previous passengers left. Three black guys were working on the boat. They were friendly but looked a bit tired. I was indeed anticipating this excursion but I was a bit worried if there would be an accident and I would be dropped into the cold water from a high place. Soon, we were in the water far away from the island. I was worried about how safe it would be, but another couple took the first turn. 😀 As more and more rope was released from the boat, they were farther and farther away, became a very small dot in the sky… Each turn took about 10 minutes. I examined their faces when they landed, they were pretty happy. I reassured myself, it should be fine. Then came my turn. Without even time to ask where I should hold, I was lifted out of the boat. The driver of the boat asked me if I wanted to get wet. “No!” I yelled. My voice was still in the air, my feet were in the cold water already. I suddenly got scared, how far would they drop me in the water? But just a second, I was lifted away. They are very experienced and picked the right person to scare. The boat was getting smaller and smaller, I saw Ron’s camera lens pointing at me. He must have taken a lot of pictures. Soon I couldn’t see them clearly, looked around, I was in the sky. Quiet, extremely quiet, only wind passing by. The cruise ship was far below me, island, beach, father and father… No humans, just enormous sky, blue sea and me breathing, listening and looking around. Wow, a bird’s life isn’t bad. So peaceful… just a bit windy though. I was just going to meditate in the peaceful place, but they started to pull me down. A couple minutes later, I landed. I saw Ron, boat-mates and heard voices. From a different perspective, things are just so different. Ron gave his camera to me, and went on his turn. He was a pretty figure under the parachute, some times he played dead, sometimes he was very frenzied. As a boy nearly forty years old, he is so funny sometimes. But when we were filling some waiver form before the parasailing departure on the boat, he asked me how old he was!!! I nearly fainted. Sometimes, his bad memory really pisses me off… Anyway I used his camera and kept clicking the shutter for a while. I felt I looked very professional with his huge camera lens. And it was very heavy….

After the parasailing, we still had some time before heading back to the cruise ship. I started my second attempt of the day to swim in the sea. There were less people on the beach. We found an empty couch, and hid the camera bag under the towel and clothes. We both went into the water after promising each other that both of us would keep an eye on the camera. Again I stopped in the water, cold, cold, cold. Ron was in the water already and enticing me by saying “believe me it is not cold at all after you are all in the water.” I was going to go back to the beach again since we needed someone to look after the camera as well.. 😛 Ron pushed me into the water. Damn you…. well it was indeed not that bad. Soon I started to swim in the salt water. Floating on a mattress we picked up, I enjoyed the view of the sky and clouds . After my last trip to Thailand, five years later, I was in the tropical water again.

Having reached my target of swimming in the sea, we took the tender back to the ship at around 5:30PM. Ms Zuiderdam was going to leave Half moon Cay and head to the next island in half an hour. After we washed up and rested ourselves for a while in the room, we dressed up for dinner. We booked our dinner at Pinnacle Grill today. Ron did some research before and it was said that the Pinnacle Grill was the most famous and best restaurant on this cruise line. Since it was new year eve, we decided to pamper oursleves a bit with some even better food. Since we hardly ever have sea food at home due to Ron’s limited food choices, I ordered some crab legs and some kind of fish fillet for myself. Ron ordered a fancy steak dinner. The restaurant is especially good at making steaks. The waiter showed us a display of raw beef with differnt cuts before we ordered. The meal was great and we both had a glass of red wine.

After that, night life started. 😀 We started to explore the ship. We explored the jewelry shop, library and passed through the casino. Ron dislikes the casino a lot, otherwise I wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time in the casino…. watching. In the 007movie, James Bond was very cool on the poker table. Although I have no idea how to play any game in the casino. We both brought our laptops. When we were in the line to check in to the cruise ship in Fort Lauderdale, a couple in front of us was shocked seeing that both of us carried laptops. The guy said that he wouldn’t want to see his laptop at all during his cruise. I told them that we were such nerds that we couldn’t live without computers for a single day. To this day, we still hadn’t opened the laptop bag yet. After checking the price of internet access in the library, we concluded that we wouldn’t need our laptops in the trip. The price was ridiculously expensive. That couple were indeed exprienced cruisers! Sometimes being a nerd is pricey.

It was New year’s eve! We found various performances going on in our daily schedule. So we went to different decks to see the different showes. Always singing and dancing. Ron never dances. So we just sat and watched. Many senior couples enjoyed themselves. What a nice view! New year was approaching, we decided to go to the big hall on deck two to celebrate the new year. On the way there, lots of snacks and champagne, no wonder people say that it is very easy to gain weight on a cruise. We found it was impossible to squeeze in to the big hall by the time we arrived there. It was very crowded already. Instead we found seats in the piano bar nearby. I couldn’t see the piano player since he and his piano were surrounded by people as well. Apparently he was playing some popular ballads, most people knew the tune so well that they started to sing and dance. Ron and I were sitting in a corner. A waiter served us two glasses of champagne. After the last ten second count down, people started to shout happily and sing a song unknown to me. I drank the champagne and celebreated my first new year with my husband. Strangely in the noisy atmosphere, I felt a bit lonely.

Enough for one day. Bed, bed, I am coming!