Buckley's Blog

Half Moon Cay and R-e-s-p-e-c-t

Read the previous installment here.

Our last full day of the cruise.  You'll see from the photo to the right, that the ship was not  adjacent to any land, but moored offshore.  No pier at Half Moon Cay, Holland America's private island in the Bahamas.  The "Half Moon" is actually a corporate homage to explorer Henry Hudson's ship -- the real name of the place is Little San Salvador Island.  Click on the photo to watch a video of the beach.

We'd heard great things about this place, including it being named "best private island" by some travel magazine.  Not that I'd be able to tell any different from any other private island, since I've only ever been to one other -- Naushon off of Woods Hole (private preserve of the Masachusetts Forbes family).  Unless you want to count Monomoy Island, which national Wildlife Service and certain bird groups have, on occasion, treated as their own private preserve.

So we had to grab a shuttle to shore, which we did early.  For her birthday, Chandra wanted to ride a horse through surf on a tropical island.  After ditching me with my detective novel at a beach chair, she got her wish. 

My sister, Elisabeth Kelly, used to live in St. Croix, and before I left for this cruise expressed the hope we'd have good weather.  "Don't worry about it.  It used to rain there every day.  But it only rained for maybe 15 minutes, and then the sun would come out and everything would dry off and before you know it, you're hot and hoping it will rain again."

So right after I took up residence on my beach chair, it rained.  I took shelter under a nearby palm tree, which afforded me as much cover as a baseball cap.  So I dug into my backpack, dug out my cap, upon which it stopped raining and everything was fine.

A little after noon, Chandra returned from her ride.  It had been either swimming with the manta rays or riding the ponies.  She was happy with her choice... and even got a few invitations from her Jamaican instructors to stay on the island and take up residence with them when they returned at the end of the cruising season to Jamaica.  "Didn't take 'em up on it?" I asked.

"No," she replied.  "But there's still time..."

There's a pretty good setup at Half Moon Cay for eating.  It is set up as a buffet with all sorts of burgers, barbecue and other beach food.  Everyone eats their fill, then chokes down more dessert, and then waddle back to their beach chairs.  As this was the last full day of the cruise, the feeling is not unlike the last good summer day.  There's a palpable feeling of it being over, and so everything seems extra glorious.  Unlike San Juan, HAL nailed the schedule perfectly in this regard.  You really go out on a bang here.

Apparently, someone else had the same idea.  When we got back to our chairs, we learned that a gentleman had passed away a little earlier on the day while sitting on the beach.  Heart attack, apparently.  Not a bad way to die, and not a bad place to do it, everyone we ran into agreed.  I'm guessing he wasn't travelling alone, so maybe that view wasn't universally held.  But even that assumption could be incorrect.

I never found out who the deceased was.  But we guessed that when one of the shuttles running back to the ship, apparently empty, passed by, that the dearly departed was heading back with us.  "Wait, he's coming with us?" Chandra wondered.

"Well, there's no airstrip."  I had earlier remarked that it appeared everything we ate had been broughton shore with us.  The place was only provisioned enough for the 30-odd employees who look after the horses and other facilities seasonally.  Even the horses leave when everyone else does.  "And I'm guessing there's no huge cooler he can hang out in until someone else arrives.  I'm guessing that Holland American brought him here, and everything else they brought to the beach today, they gotta take him back, too."

"Where would they keep him?"

"They could have a morgue.  I mean, how look at the typical Holland America customer."  This had been a ongoing joke.  When we booked the cruise, Chandra had pointed out that Holland America Line are not mistaken for "the fun ships."  No, this is the more conservative line.  Lots of grandparents.  Average age was over 50, she had said, and white.  "Oh, so it will be like Chatham."  And it was.  So having a morgue on board made a lot of sense when many of your passengers are already living on borrowed time.  Meanwhile, Chandra enjoyed skewing the demographic.

So before we headed back, we took one more swim.  When I looked down through the crystal-clear water, I saw... things swiming around me.  Not having my glasses on, I really couldn't tell what they were.  Chandra saw them, too, and after she got my glasses, we could see they were fish.  Except for s few black stripes, they appeared to be almost transparent.  Must have been a reflection, because after all these years on the water, I'm fairly sure that fish don't have clear blood.

There were a few blasts of a horn down by the docks.  I don't know how many times they sound the signal for everyone to come back to the shuttles back to the ship, but they keep doing it.  And most everybody took their sweet time packing up.  Unlike St. Thomas, San Juan or Grand Turk, the ship will not -- probably is prohibited from -- leave anyone behind.  As our left the dock, I caught this video of departure down the narrow manmade channel, and past the beach.

So back onboard at last, we changed and hit our last dinner of the trip.  Having only had several days to prepare, I suddenly remembered to mention to our waited it was Chandra's birthday.  As we strolled into the Vista Dining Room, quite a few people were wishing her well for tonight's final night of Zuiderdam Superstars.  "What do you think you'll win?" one asked.

"God only knows," she replied.  "But after all this, I hope it's worth it."

 After our dinner plates were taken away, a crowd of the dining room staff gathered round and sung an Indonesia birthday song AND happy birthday to Chandra.  Quite a few of our fellow diners joined in as well.  Then, sufficiently stuffed, we headed off to the show.

We had previously had a discussion as to what that final song should be.  Pickin's was gettin thin on the song list, and we were trying to guage the crowd.  She had been told to pick an up-tempo song by the show's staff, and so that limited it a bit.  At last, she picked "Respect" by Aretha Franklin.  Kinda fit her mood by that point -- with the big mystery about what she'd be getting after picking up the slack for the entertainment crew.

So, as I recall, Julie Andrews stopped being Julie Andrews and did Dancing Queen by Abba.  The girl from Canada did another great, great job with... well, whatever she sang.  But when Chandra came out, this final night, she told me her throat immediately closed up so she ended up singing the song a little higher than Aretha Franklin (pProbably shoulda had another Amaretto Sour).  Then Stephanie, the young lady from Texas came out.

I don't know where she got this dress, but she was travelling with her mother, father and sister.  This is not the sort of dress one wears to a formal evening.  Maybe a very high-end disco.  But, more than likely, it was bought during the cruise specifically for this show.  She did a fine job (although the Canadian girl consistently did a better job singing and Chandra consistently looked more comfortable on stage).  So, as you can see from this video, she took home the prize of... something we were not informed of at that time by the judges.

After it was all over, I caught Chandra coming out of the Queen's Lounge while she was just happy it was over, it was clear she unhappy with her throat constricting to give her voice a more pixy-like tenor.  "So," I asked, "what did you get?"

She held it up.  A towel.

Meanwhile, Stephanie went by with her family.  She was carrying a white IMac.  "Why does she have a laptop?" I asked Chandra.

Chandra said that Stephanie had the song and had been rehearsing.  I hadn't signed up for internet access since the ship charge for it was $5/minute -- with an extra connection charge, even if you were using wireless.  To download a song, then, would have cost... a lot.  Like the dress.

Then Cruise Director Trevor Millar, who was one of the judges, and his assistant, who served as emcee, walked out of the Queen's Lounge.  They thanked Chandra for all her nights, singing, and then she introduced me.  I said I was really happ to finally talk to him since no one at the front desk had gotten back to me regarding my credentials as a travel writer for Cape Cod Today. 

I could not -- could not if I had been director Norman Jewison himself -- gotten a more authentic portrayal of shock from these two young gentlemen.  They stopped.  Their eyes went wide.  They looked at each other.  They looked back at me.  But before they could say anything, I asked, "Do you give the winner a laptop?"

"What?  A laptop?  Who?  No!  No, no, no...  who said that?"

 From what I learned, she got two towels.  Good thing she bought the dress.  Maybe it was better Chandra didn't win.  There might have been two more dead men on board that night.

We ended up at the casino that night.  It is nothing special, and slots pays off in Bahamian quarters.  When the next and final stop is Florida, you really don't need a pocket full of foreign change in your pocket. We each decided to splurge.  I think I broke a five at the cashier.  When that was gone, I found a quarter on the floor and that became twelve bucks within a few seconds.  We had to get going, so it took us a while to get rid of it all.  Maybe not what the a casino is meant for -- still, Holland America came out ahead.

But we had a towel.

Next installment:  Back to port and reality