Time in a Blog ~ Taylor White ~ Coco Cay, Bahamas

Coco Cay, Bahamas

Posted @ 11:23 AM on March 19, 2009 | Comments (4)

Coco Cay is a private island that Royal Caribbean owns. So basically, we were the only ship there on the island, unlike in Nassau where there was 4 or 5 ships docked! Since it is so shallow around the island, the ship had to drop anchor away from the island and tender boats took us to the dock to get onto the island. We had from about 8-3:30 to be on the island. Kevin and I took our time in the morning, and I think we got to the island around 10ish.

The first thing we decided to do was go visit the lighthouse on the island. Kevin's mom loves lighthouses, so we thought we'd get some pictures of it. We get there and this is what we see...

Huh? That's a lighthouse? Where is the light? Where is the house? I went up inside it anyway. There was a little spiral staircase that took you a little ways up to a plat form and the bar next to the lighthouse had put a table and chairs up in it. While the lighthouse itself was nothing to look at, the views were pretty awesome from it. I got this picture which shows the main beaching area of Coco Cay...

Very cool. That was taken before the island got super crowded. Naturally the party crowd from last night was probably still passed out at that point.

Kevin and I went to explore the island further. I wanted to stop by the Straw Market and see if there was anything neat. I ended up finding a really neat photo album made out of local plantage. I thought it would be perfect to put in favorite photos from the trip! Kevin wasn't in a shopping mood, so we continued on further when I saw a sign for the Nature Trail. I remembered seeing that on the map and I thought it would be cool to go see all the nature things they had on the island. We found it and walked down it a little ways. It was mainly a lot of trees and shrubbery. We did see little lizards and birds, though.

When we got out of the nature trail we came out to a virtually empty area of the beach. Like our own little private island! There were even two beach chairs next to each other for us to lay down together and get some sun. Kevin decided he wanted to explore in the water -- which was freezing! He went in a little ways, and a women passed by, and ever so cooly stated, "There's a Sting Ray." And sure enough, there was a sting ray. I grabbed my camera and went down into the water as Kevin was slowly backing out of the water. I snapped a few pictures and told Kevin to shuffle in the sand. (I had watched "When Beaches Attack" on the travel channel right before I left, and that is what they said to do when going into the water so sting rays know you're coming and will leave.) That Sting ray wasn't budging! It just sort of shimmed down into the sand. So Kevin splashed some water and he finally went away. It was a little creepy. I'm glad that lady came by or Kevin could have stepped on it or something! He ended up going over to where some other people were and went out to go swim around and try and see anything with his goggles. He came back complaining how it was hard to swim in an area that was only knee deep for quite awhile!

Shortly after it was time for lunch! We headed back to the main area by way of the beach. Before leaving, I turned back and snapped this shot, which I LOVE!

Lunch was a free BBQ at the restaurant on the island. The ship provided it since it was a Royal Caribbean owned island. There was BBQ chicken and ribs, hot dogs and burgers, veggies, fruit, and Mac & Cheese! Sweet! It was really good. While we were eating, all of a sudden I see a little thing run by in the corner of my eye. It was a chicken! (Yeah, not eating my BBQ chicken in front of them...) More and more started to show up racing around for scraps that people dropped. They were cute! Kevin threw a grape on the ground to see if they would eat it, and one just devoured it by pecking it all up and eating it in small pieces, but did all that very quickly!

After we ate, we went around the island some more. Laid in a hammock for a little while and got weird marks all over our backs. I got my hair braided and we went back to the straw market and got a fun frame for Kevin's dad as a thank you for the trip. We ended up putting the picture of us in front of the ship in Nassau in the frame. We went back over by the lighthouse and hung out on the chairs underneath it to just sit there and enjoy the sound of the water and enjoy how gorgeous everything was on the island. Then we decided it was time to get back on the ship and leave the beautiful island. :(