JoCo Cruise Crazy 3: Day 2

Hooray for tropical beaches!  Day 2, Monday, we anchored at Coco Cay, which is Royal Caribbean's private island in the Bahamas.  I noticed that we were very near the Norwegian Pearl, which means that CoCo Cay must be close to Great Stirrup Cay, NCL's equivalent Bahamian paradise.  A fact that I feel the need to comment on due to the amount of brain space that not remembering the name of NCL's island took up on that morning.  The curse of the Wifi Temperance Brigade* is that you sometimes have to settle for just not knowing something. The horrors!

[*] Oh, yeah, I may have neglected to mention that on Day 1, Jay and I took David Rees' pledge to abstain from all internetting during the cruise, including the ship's WiFi, WiFi on the islands, and even the local Twit-ARR client that fellow sea monkeys set up on the ship for inter-seamonkey communication.  Being disconnected is great, and cruises are one of the few reasonable vacation options remaining that incentivize fully disconnecting from our information tethers. 

So anyway, beach day!  Hooray! The day began with a beautiful view of the sunrise from our balcony. 

On the previous JoCo cruise, I discovered dining in the main dining room for breakfast rather than the buffet on the last couple of days.  It's much more relaxing and the food is a bit better, so this time we decided to start the week off right away by breakfasting in the main dining room.  The French toast was delicious.  

OM NOM NOM

After breakfast, we took a tender over to the island.   

The itty bitty ship in the distance is the Norwegian Pearl

My big plan for the day was snorkeling.  I wasn't really planning on seeing much in the way of fish, because there's not really any coral action at CoCo Cay, but being from Minnesota, anytime a body of water is not murky and the bottom not sludgy, I get really excited.  Also, water warmer than 50ºF is a huge bonus.  I'm really easy to please. 

Look at me!  I'm in water!

There was lunch, and sandcastles, and swimming, and lounging.  The only moderate downside was when I ended up with a slight hive-like rash.  It went away shortly after we returned to the ship, after I'd been out of the sun for a while. 

Chess pieces.  Because, hey, geek cruise. 

We headed back not too long after lunch, because we needed to get ready for the evening festivities.  

Boat! It's a boat!

Dinner that that night was tasty, but dessert stole the show.  That cheesecake featured heavily in my dreams that night.   

Monday was the first formal night aboard and was also the Third Annual Paul F. Tompkins Memorial Mustache Formal and Fezstravaganza.  He's not dead.  Mustaches were provided. 

The mustache, I've decided, is only a good look for Magnum P.I.

Immediately following the Fezstravaganza, there was a John Hodgman vs. David Rees DJ-off dance party.  I'm surprised that I stayed awake for as much of it as I did. 

The Hodgman

Eventually, I did have to call it a night.  It was a tough call, but at some point during the week, sleeping needed to be done. 

Towel dude stole my shades!