Climb Aboard!
Sun. Nov. 18
Princess Cays, Bahamas [Snorkeling]
(Note: All underwater photos taken by my AKASO V50 Pro Native)
The crew pulled through! We've reached Princess Cays only arriving 11 minutes later than our ETA. Apparently, the ship had stepped up its pace overnight so we could arrive on time for our excursions. That was a fright over and dealt with. After a light breakfast that we ordered from room service, we quickly got ready. Applying sunscreen and getting dressed we headed out the door, ready as ever to disembark. The ship itself stopped quite a ways away from the shore, as you can see, so a few tenders were sent out to carry us to shore and then back again.
Closing in on land the only thing that came to mind was "Wow, this really looks like the Caribbean!" I know, I know, naive of me, but it was undeniably, breathtakingly beautiful. Pale-yellow, coarse sand, palm tree's with coconuts, a cloudy blue sky full of sun, and of course a clear blue ocean. My heart warmed for such a beautiful scene.
Almost as quickly as we came ashore we got back onto another boat, a little bit smaller than the one that took us to shore, but with a large, open cabinet in the middle full of snorkel masks and fins. I was very excited. The last time my sister and I had snorkeled was when we were around 8 years old, and we started when we were 5. Our mom started early. We would swim nearly every day and dive for sea shells, but my biggest excitement for today was being able to see the coral reef.
The boat took my family and our friends out about a mile or so, not very far at all, but the spot was just right for what I wanted. We had our own snorkel masks, so after a bit of defog and washing we quickly put on our fins and jumped in. Wow did it not disappoint, my breath was taken away. This reef has to be the most intricately made reef that I've ever seen, but it's also my first coral reef I've set eyes on as well. I was used to the volcanic rock reef from Hawaii. The spam of photos commence!
The ocean was beautiful and vast, full of hidden life in the reef. The water was warm as well, reminding me of Hawaii, yet at the same time reminding me of the cold waters of Washington. After the wonderful experience from down underwater, the boat's whistle had been blown, signaling an hour, and we were all summoned to come back onboard the vessel. My only regret from my experience is that I wish I could have swum deeper. After moving to Washington and it having a colder ocean, we stopped snorkeling and I found that my eardrums couldn't handle the pressure like they used to. My sister and I were disappointed but we didn't take the risk of them bursting. Taking off our equipment, I learn that my friend had found a conch! It was fresh out of the ocean, still a bit damp with moss and other fuzzy, furry material (I'm not very well informed of ocean biology), but it was definitely empty!
Drying off on the boat ride back to shore we quickly set off for a place to eat. After what seemed to be a terribly long walk under the hot sun we found food! The Princess had a barbeque, free of charge, that we were able to grab lunch at. So after eating till we were full we continued to walk around the island, in the heat mind you, and we found a post that overlooked the ocean and I took a couple of pictures from there.
A lot more walking later, we finally decided to go back to the ship and I had been surprisingly hungry. I wasn't surprised though, the energy that was exerted during snorkeling was a lot more than my body's used to. My family headed to afternoon tea, something that started at 3:30 pm (Note: Sometimes it's not on the patter but it's still hosted). We ate a few sandwiches, cakes, and scones (my favorite) along with a cup of calming, warm tea.
Taking another nap, a mixture of jetlag and exhaustion, I woke up and we ate another 3-course meal and went back to sleep. I know, not very eventful, but I was terribly tired that day. I looked forward to the day at sea tomorrow which was a time for relaxation and hopefully I could work on my sleep schedule with more naps!
Looking back at my week-long trip, I would have to say that Princess Cays steals the prize for my favorite excursion thus far. I just loved the reef and the different fish there, the stingray helped push for the prize as well. If I could I would have had more pictures but it's hard with the limit on how many I upload.
Disclaimer: Pictures were taken by me on my iPhone or my AKASO V50 Pro Native (an off-brand GoPro) unless otherwise stated.
Oh I see, you took smaller boats to shore ! Such interesting things :D
Also the photos are really lovely and I love your text, it flows nicely with the pictures :D :D :D
Thank you! I'm trying to pick up some different things for format on Steemit so my only hope was that it would turn out ^^;
Did you load the sideways picture directly from a mobile device? Whenever I try to load up portrait photos from my tablet camera without adjusting them they turn sideways. Landscape ones are fine though.
The pictures were all taken on my phone, so when transferring them to my computer a few of them were unable to transfer for some reason, the conch being one of them. So to bring those over onto my computer I had to use the photos from my iCloud which I downloaded, but the photo wasn't sideways, so I'm not sure why transferring it from my downloads onto Steemit had made it sideways. That's all I know ^^; I do know that it doesn't happen for every download, so again I'm not sure why it was that picture. I didn't have the time to re-upload it since I have a cap on how many pictures I'm able to upload in a day. Thanks for the information though!