5 Year Anniversary Cruise: Day 3 - Half Moon Cay

Wednesday was the day we stopped at a little private island called Half Moon Cay.

Let me just say, if there are beaches in heaven, they probably look and feel like this one! The greenery wasn't super spectacular compared to other tropical places, but the sand and water were AMAZING!! I really am not exaggerating when I say it felt like we were walking through flour on the beach because the sand was so fine and soft. We stole a little ziplock baggie so we could prove it to people when we got home haha. The water was crystal clear and so gorgeously colored. We seriously considered hiding in the bushes when it was time to go back to the ship so that they'd leave us and we could stay an extra week until the next ship came through.
Anyway, we woke up early so we could be on one of the first tender boats and not have to wait in crazy lines to get to the island. It was a smart move because we still had to wait for quite a while.

The water was too shallow for the cruise ship to get very close so the tender boats just went back and forth all day with loads of people.

Our cruise ship from the tender boat.

We were SO excited for our first island experience in the Bahamas!

Seriously it looked like a swimming pool and I'm sure the water was at LEAST a good 20+ feet here. It was so clear! All the shades of blue were just stunning!

A picture of the cruise ship from the island. Look at those gradual shades of blue against the pretty blue sky.

Almost to the island. The cool pirate ship looking thing was a bar...or course. They've gotta make their money somehow so that people like us can get such an inexpensive trip! :)

After checking out the beach for a little while we decided to go explore the island and find out where our stingray encounter was going to be. The was a nature walk we could have paid to go on but since the trail was marked very clearly we decided to just follow it ourselves. I'm sure we'd have learned some fun stuff on the tour but it was fun to be by ourselves for free.

There were trees similar to this on our honeymoon in Cancun and since we have pictures with them there we thought we'd better get pictures with them here! :)

Tyson wanted to pose me like all the photographers the night before haha!

I loved that the roads and paths just curved all through the trees and bushes. Even the pavilions where we ate lunch we all kind of hidden from each other because there was so much greenery around them all.

I wish we were rich enough to have a camera that did a good job capturing colors because this little lizard's tail was BRIGHT blue! We saw them running all over the island while we went on our walk.

Tyson thought I was a nerd for taking a picture of the bathroom signs but I thought they were way funny and clever.

After exploring the island for a while and getting nice and hot in the sunshine we decided to go try out the water on the beach. Not only did the water and sand make a perfect beach but even the temperature of the water was perfect! There wasn't even much of an initial shock of getting into the water. It was just pleasant. We had lots of fun playing with our new underwater camera. Even if it doesn't capture colors very well it was still definitely worth it to have on our cruise and get so many fun underwater pictures!

Totally random picture of feet haha, but it was to show how clear the water was. The camera was above the water and our feet were about four feet down.

Obviously the most flattering picture of me from the entire cruise. Haha! I just had to include it.

That could just be a normal swimming pool right?

As it got closer to lunch time we decided to just relax and dry off for a while. It could not have been more perfect. It was such a perfect step away from real life to forget all about everything negative and get to know each other all over again. The whole week was like that and it was just what we needed.

Sun, sand, and water = paradise!

Of course Tyson had to let his inner kid out and get a little bit buried in the sand! I love that he's not all the way grown up and boring yet. I hope he never is. :)

We ran into Jack and April a little before lunch so we were able to get a couple pictures that weren't awkward selfies. Yay! We didn't have a ton of time before lunch so we mostly just caught up on what we had each done for the morning. After waiting in the long lines for lunch we lost them again (since the pavilions were all pretty separate). It was fun to see someone we knew for a minute though. :)

After a yummy lunch we headed down to our stingray adventure. It was so much fun but for some reason the water was quite a bit colder and it was pretty windy! I was shivering most of the time but staying covered with water helped. Still totally worth it though!

This excursion was one of the least expensive but also seemed like the most fun. Perfect for a couple on a budget! :)

All dressed up and ready to go! Excited and nervous! All the stingrays were from the wild and still had their stinger things. I tried not to think of Steve Irwin very much haha!

There were lots of huge starfish all over the ocean floor.

They told us that stingrays have the suction of ten shop vacuums so all the white marks all over them were just stingray hickies haha!

This stingray got her tail bitten off by a shark.

After swimming around for a while we got to touch them out of the water (they were harder to reach when they were under us and the snorkels weren't the kind we could dive down with) and feed them. They're so slimy and soft. It's pretty cool.

When the guide would lift them out of the water like this they'd spit water all over the place and make a hilarious face. This one had just spit and it got all over Tyson right before he took the picture. That's why the photographer in the back is laughing and pointing.

When the guide got the food out the stingrays went CRAZY! They were all over him and us. I love this picture because she's practically climbing up his leg trying to get out of the water.

We each got to hold a delicious looking raw squid while we waited for our turn. Ew. It was freezing and slimy and smelly.

The guide held his hand over ours to make sure we didn't get a painful stingray hickey on our fingers from doing it wrong.

Tyson's turn to feed. We just held our hands a foot or so below the water and they'd come right up and with a very noisy slurping sound the squid was suddenly gone.

After we had each had a turn feeding the stingrays we got to hold a bunch of other sea creatures.

These starfish were so big and actually kind of heavy. I was surprised.

They told us it's good luck to kiss the mouth of a sea cucumber. The problem is that it has two holes, one on each end, and no one knows which is the mouth and which is not so we had to guess.

50% chance that one of us got it right I guess haha!

I've seen plenty of conch shells before, but this was the first time I've actually seen the conch hiding inside. I guess I didn't totally make the connection that a creature lives in the big shell. Haha duh!

Funny story: as we were waiting to get in the water we were talking to this couple behind Tyson. They were from Georgia. When they asked what Tyson did for work and he told them he worked at a food storage company they asked if we were Mormon. It made us laugh that it wasn't Utah that triggered the question, but food storage. The wife said she knew a Mormon girl growing up who had a huge storage room full of food so that's how she remembered.

After were done with the stingrays we rode back to the warm side of the beach and went swimming again and laid out some more to warm up. This time Tyson decided he wanted to get completely buried in the nice sand.

It was kind of hilarious to see people's different reactions to him being buried like this. Some people looked at him like he was an idiot (poor them for apparently having boring lives). Others thought it was so awesome. Two little old ladies walked by and did a triple take when they saw a random head poking out. They thought it was hilarious and if they had had a camera with them I'm sure they'd have taken a picture!

Basically I'm just a sucker for nature. I took SO many pictures. I love the sun reflecting over the water on this one. It's exactly how the moon looked at night on the water but of course it was completely dark all around the glow. The camera never could quite capture that beauty.

Mmmm brown legs with all those shades of tan, turquoise, and blue...

Kinda fun to notice how deep the cruise ship was sitting in the water. It's amazing that it can only be that far under the water and have so much above!

Cute little bunny towel animal. He reminded us to say our prayers haha! ;)