"A Beautiful Day At Coco Cay"

Randy and I woke up a early (little after 6 - early for me, not for him) and stood out on the balcony for a bit. It's a bit humid but it looks like a lovely day. We went out for coffee and hot tea, then added a little salmon, a little pastry, a little chocolate croissant... 

Good thing we took a walk around the deck to work of a few of those calories. This is a lovely way to start the day.

Around 8 we met up with Aaron and Glenda for our real breakfast buffet at the Windjammer. There are a lot of choices with breads, cheeses, eggs, waffles, etc; they even offer salmon soaked in beet juice or squid ink, or plain.

Then we went down to deck 2 to pick up some towels and head out to the beach! Ahead is Coco Cay, a private island owned by Royal Caribbean. 

Behind is our beautiful ship, and I guarantee that the dock was built with this photo op in mind. 

And here we are, ready for some fun and sun!

The water was kind of cool so we got in slowly and after getting used to the temp, did a little snorkeling, Unfortunately we found surprisingly few fish here. Eventually we headed over to the other side, the side with jetties. We got some drinks at the little hut to cool off before we headed back to the beach - diet Coke for me and a juice concoction for Randy.  We passed a local guy beating a fresh coconut against a tree and when it cracked slightly he poured some of the juice over his head.  As it continue to dribble out he cupped his hand to catch is and drink it and, with a big smile, offered to pour some for Randy.  Randy tasted it and said it was wonderful.

The jetties didn't have much in the way of fish, either. But it was a bit warmer! 

Time for lunch! As we walked over to the buffet, I offered a local guy $ if he would open a coconut for me. He got a fresh one and hacked it open - it was unusually tough to open, even with a machete. 

A coconut contains a lot more water/juice than I imagined. We shared the coconut-flavored water and bits of fresh coconut, but it was a lot more than we could finish. 

So on to lunch. They set up another buffet here, with hamburgers, hot dogs, tacos, lots of side dishes, fruit cookies, and ice cream (which made Glenda happy!).

We saw one or two little chickens running around, and a large sand sculpture of a  pleasingly plump mermaid. 

We headed back to the boat around 1pm for a shower and nap. Then got a snack art the Casino Bar (it had been 2 hours since we ate anything!)

Then we gambled a bit. Yesterday I won $3. Today I lost 43...I am not a gambling wizard. Randy, however, won. So smug!

Since I wasn't going to win a fortune, we all went on deck to watch the ship leave the dock. Then the guys got Mai Tai Drinks and we all played trivia, hosted by a guy with really strong accent. Sometimes we couldn't understand what he was saying but it didn't matter, we would have lost anyway. 

The evening musical entertainment show was not very good. It was a tribute to Broadway and they had a few good singers but they opted to avoid popular songs, and they put the ones they choose into awkward arrangements.

Dinner was pretty good but the best part were the servers. Waiter Ngurah was good and Assistant Waiter Eden was even better. He served us as if we were 1st class guests on a grand ocean liner of yore.

Afterwards we went to look at the shops a bit before heading back to the cabins.