12-9-17 Half Moon Cay:

One  more night and one  more port.  This time to HAL's private island.  I always love going here.  IT's a nice low stress day with a beautiful beach and some pretty decent snorkeling.  This time we were sharing the island with another HAL ship.

We headed off the ship shortly after breakfast.

I always forget they have lockers here---even though we don't use them it is a nice feature.

It was a crowded beach today

But there's plenty of water out there to handle the crowds

looking out towards the ships

pompano fish right by shore

sergeant major

a little cleaner wrasse

the little reef out by the rope in the kids area

a surprising amount of fish there

 a larger wrasse greeting us

a couple grunts

the wall on the bay side of the channel that the tenders go through is a great place to snorkel on calm days.  Today was a nice calm day.  There's lots of interesting stuff these weird things

one of the tiny fish

some interesting above water critters, too

a few yellow fin surgeonfish and a spot light parrotfish

some pretty nice coral here and there, too

more coral

lots of colorful fish

lots of grunt

last time we were here this support post was in 2 pieces.

parrotfish

more of the terrain

feather  worm

We've always seen barracudas here, too.

the kids play area

the expensive group pavillion.  It appeared to actually be rented today

another feather worm

blue head wrasse

blue damselfish

 even schools of fish

chubs

blue stripe snapper

the tiny Rock Beauty fish and more common snapper

Ken was the first one to notice this guy

some of the artificial reef

a less common caribbean grouper

brain coral

with Christmas tree worms on it.   

the rock wall of the children area that has some pretty good snorkeling

some kind of zebra fish

more feather duster worms

the wall from under the water line

juvenile wrasses     

an adult French Angelfish

after a couple hours, we made our way to the picnic area

the cute little church along the way

the bar b q pavillion

fruit---man, I forgot how much I like those plums!

the buffet line

love the way they made the palm tree decoration!  Also loved the plums.

my lunch---salad, mahi fish, fruit and banana bread for dessert

after lunch I took a walk.  When I was walking by this area, a guy came up and wanted to show off his garden.  So another couple who was walking in front of me and I took him up on his offer.

i listened to his presentation for awhile, then continued on my way

walked up to the sting ray pen to see how they fared through the storm.

they seemed to have done fine.

plumeria?

walking back to the beach along the lagoon

the rental area for jet skis and kayaks for the lagoon

back at the beach and heading back to the snorkel area.

back to snorkel some more

a jack and a juvenile French angelfish

interesting shell

yellow tail goatfish

love these fish.  Haven't seen them in Hawaii---French Angelfish

trying to do an underwater and above water photo.  Probably the best one I've gotten so far.

I was heading back to the loungers when I came across this huge school of big eye fish really close to shore

also saw an alligator needle fish

the Jacks and juvenile French angelfish again

the very territorial sergeant major.  He even tried to chase me away

part of a school of barracudas---we quite often see a school of them here.  We've always seen at least one barracuda here.

lots of fish under the ladder to the group pavilion

part of the school of fish by shore again

HAL as we were tendering back to it.

back to our ship.

dinner back in the Lido restaurant, then off to the ON Stage show---Variety Show with Brett Cave (an Elton John and Billy Joel type piano player), Craig Ricard (a saxophonist) and Joseph Reohm (the magician and illusionist).  They were very good, again.

We always walked by the Lincoln Center Stage on our way to the Main stage.  The string group playing there sounded really good, too.

On Stage Tonight----no warning not to take pictures again, so I did.

We skipped the Poolside Movie tonight and packed instead. 

This guy helped us pack.

Along with our nightly Oprah inspirational post card, we were also given O's Little Book of Happiness.

We also got our voyage log with some interesting statistics.

The only "O's" activities today:  Just breathe (a special morning meditation on Half Moon Cay led by Sar Ivanhoe, ecertified yoga and meditation instructor).  If it hadn't taken place so early, I might have done it.

Her saying of the day, "It makes no difference how many peaks you reach if there was no pleasure in the climb."