Bahamas Cruise (part 2) …the ocean, beach, and sun

Standing on the beach – toes in the cool sand. Listening to the waves crash. The salty air blowing my wet hair. The bright sun shining in my eyes. Sparkling “blue” water as far as I could see. Seagulls overhead crying to each other. I had dreamed of this moment…the moment when I saw the ocean. I had only read about this in books and seen pictures of the ocean…but my thoughts had not even come close to the beauty and magnitude of what lay before my eyes. Water forever…the waves never stopped. I could have just stood there all day and never gotten tired of looking.

Are you ready for a ton of pictures of the ocean? =) I had never seen it before and was completely blown away with what I saw so I took pictures…

A LOT of pictures=)

This the Miami Bay as we were leaving port on February 9th. This was my first view of what life near the ocean is like…and I tell you I could move into one of those houses tomorrow…=) It’s completely beautiful! 

So blue…it’s an almost unnaturally blue. Breathtaking.

We didn’t find many shells…that was my only disappointment of the trip. You go to a beach and you find shells right?!?! Oh well we found a few small ones, that’s better than nothing. not really.

Stepping into the ocean for the first time…it’s so salty. Crazy I knew it would be but didn’t know that it would be this salty. So when I went under the water I did what I always do, opened my eyes. Yeah I didn’t do that again.

That’s the cruise ship behind me…we came over to this Island on the Tender that day. Normally we just ported and walked off the ship onto land…it was cool doing it this way though.

Here’s the Island as we were leaving…see the light house in the middle of the picture?

On Nassau…we went on a tour and one of our stops was at this peer. It was very windy out there…if you can’t tell by our crazy looking hair=)

The lighthouse…as a child one of the first books I ever read was about a girl and a lighthouse. I’ve been completely infatuated by them ever since.

those tall buildings to the left are apart of a “twin” island of Nassau. Paradise Island. Now if I was going to move to the Bahamas I would move here, absolutely beautiful. A true tropical paradise. 

Since I’m an early riser I got to see the sun rise over the ocean every morning. This was by far the most beautiful sunrise ever. Nothing compares…well maybe over the hills of Indiana….yeah that’s definitely more beautiful=)

Look at that reflection in the water…at night we’d go out on the deck and stare at the moonbeam on the water. The night sky over the ocean is stunning. I don’t have the lens to take pictures of the moon yet, I was really wishing for it then.

This is the beach on the Grand Bahamas Island. The most beautiful of the three we visited.

Coral

We both took off running into the water right before this picture. She accidently wore her sunglasses in. I lost my earing, the waves just pulled my one out, so I included the other one…what the use of just one earing?

My favorite picture of us two…she had already put her shorts back on. She just stood on the shore and waited, waited and waited for me to get through taking pictures. And she never complains…that’s another reason we’re best friends.

Selfy=) she’s going to kill me, but hey it was on my camera.

I wrote in my bubble letters in the sand. The waves would wash it away and I would have another clean place to write. It was so much fun. I know I’ve said that a bunch, but it really was=)

Waiting on the waves, then they cover our feet, and away they go.

I left my footprints in the sand!

“Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone.”

That spray of water is so cool…don’t you think?

The foam…

Let’s take a break from ocean pictures and look at Christina…lol…the salt water made our normally straight hair curl. I was in heaven=) I love these pictures of her!

We walked for about three miles down this beach, barefoot. We talked and walked, it was by far my favorite memory from the entire cruise. Plus we really needed the exercise after all that food on board…

Is there a more perfect picture?!?!

This little guy was running out to the ocean, waiting on the waves, then turning and running away from them as they came rolling in. So adorable.

I love this. She just stopped in the middle of the path and was cleaning her feet off, so she could put her sandals on. I was apologizing to the people who were going around her. One elderly couple laughing said they were just glad to be able to pass anyone=)

Leaving the Grand Bahamas Island…my last view of the tropics.

Too many pictures of the ocean? I know, I know…=) And that’s not even all of them.

We had such a great time in the water and on the beach. It was pretty chilly the days we were there and windy so we didn’t do a whole lot of swimming, as I had hoped. But nothing could beat the ocean view.