Day 42. 11 December. Half Moon Cay, Bahamas

0530 and we are up. What is with this early rising? Found a coffee machine though. The guy who always grabs the same deck chair is already there, in the dark with his 2 chairs covered in daily gear. No other chairs even have the mats on them yet. I suppose he slept there in case someone else wanted to use his chairs.

Pretty nice weather last night. It got down to 68ºF. The Internet was down again so posting yesterday had to wait and any emails will be collected later, hopefully. The net is expensive to access and the link so slow it eats up dollars in a hurry. Time for a change.

We came in to Half Moon Cay at 0730 and at 0800 dropped the hook. This island of the Bahamas is owned by Carnival Corporation and is set up for cruise ship visits with beach chairs, cabanas, snorkeling, swimming, a barbecue area, a couple of bars and some shopping stalls. It is beautiful and very well maintained. We rode a local tender ashore, walked the beach, ate a barbecue, walked the beach again then returned to the ship for an early sailing.

The noon report: At Anchor: 24º 34.52'N, 075º 57.60'W . Wind 7 knots. Temp 23C/73F. Sunrise 0737. Sunset 1816. Distance traveled of 448 nm noon-to-noon and a total of 11,306 for the voyage.

1445 the anchor came up and we began the leg that will take us along the islands and over to Ft. Lauderdale where we will disembark tomorrow morning.

At 1500 we attended an impromptu farewell party in the Neptune then returned for final packing and prep for dinner. It was a big dinner extravaganza followed by many farewells for our crew and passenger friends.

Another time change for tonight. I wonder what time we will wake up tomorrow.

The final report will be in a couple of days. I hope you have enjoyed this series.