Half Moon Cay & Grand Turks

Our third and fourth day could be classified as our "beach days."  Thankfully the weather was starting to warm up and we no longer needed sweatshirts and blankets to be outside!  Bonus!

I had the pleasure of spending the morning with a masseuse...it was very nice to be pampered!  While I was at the spa, Tim went to breakfast with his family, something we hadn't done yet, preferring to have it delivered to our room instead.  We all met up again and headed to the lower echelons of the ship to board another boat that would take us ashore.

Half Moon Cay is owned by Holland America (Carnival is a subsidiary of H.A.) and pretty much all of their collective Caribbean cruises stop there for a day.  It was a great!

We found our beach chairs...

We had a clear view of our ship...

 We watched as Tim & Patti gathered the courage to try the water...

 ...it was cold.

After an hour or so of reading (I finished my book...One Day...it was SO good!) and lounging, we all headed to the island BBQ for lunch.

 During lunch, we decided to try and rent some water equipment so we could enjoy the water without having to dive in.

After a while it was time to head back to the ship.  Our view looked like this as we left the island:

 That night was full of fun, including a show by our wait staff at dinner and BINGO in the main theater. I was TWO away from winning $500!  Grrr...

And, yes, I'm wearing a crown of pull tabs. I won $10 from those! :-)

Our next day was spent in Grand Turks and we had some great weather!  Thankfully we had waited until the last day for our snorkeling adventure and, judging by the weather, it was the perfect choice!

Laurie is modeling our excursion tickets...

 Tim is modeling his hat...

 In front of our ship (on the left) and the ship that was in every port with us (on the right)...

Our catamaran for the excursion...

 Most of our crew was from Jamaica and they definitely had that "yah mon" swagger...at one point we had anchored off of a small beach to play in the waves and one of the crew members was floating in a life raft with a pitcher of "Love Potion #10," a rather cough-syrupy concoction and a stack of cups.  He was offering it to all of the "Spice Girls" on the trip.  :-)

Here we are on the boat, pre-snorkel...

After our time in the water, in which I spent the ENTIRE time (Go Me!), we had a dance party...

 Finally it was time to head back to the shore to have a look at the island. Or at least the cruise resort that they have built for short-term visitors.  That was a big surprise, we thought there would be more there!

I liked this weather station...

 (click on picture to enlarge)

Tim, Laurie and I headed to Margaritaville, the only restaurant available to us, for a Linner.

 And then it was time to head back to the boat, but not before we took a picture in front of the big "Grand Turk" sign...

 And the cruise ships.

That was pretty much those two days in a nutshell!  I did forget to mention that we actually got to Grand Turk about an hour late.  Our excursion was scheduled for 15 minutes after our original arrival, as were a bunch of other excursions!  In order to accommodate this, everyone with an excursion got to exit the boat first.  We were among the VERY first to get off!  Oh, and at the end of this day, I tripped getting back on the boat and somehow damaged my ankle.  Go Me! :-)

There's still more!  Including our New Year's celebration and our final day in Miami!  That post is on the way...