{"id":2717,"date":"2013-11-09T08:42:50","date_gmt":"2013-11-09T16:42:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2014-09-27T05:33:34","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T12:33:34","slug":"another-day-for-you-and-me-in-paradise-half-moon-key-bahamas-11022013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/?p=2717","title":{"rendered":"Another Day For You And Me In Paradise \u2013 Half Moon Key, Bahamas \u2013 [11\/02\/2013]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SeaGoddess\"<\/a>I am the first to admit that I\u2019m not a sun-baby, but for Half-Moon Key I make an exception. The company owns this island, and it boasts one of the best beaches in the Bahamas. The water here is so blue that if you saw a photo of it you would swear it was digitally altered, or that perhaps we put some kind of colorant in the water to make it look that way. Not so, it really is<\/i> that colour of turquoise and the sand really is that super-soft and white.<\/p>\n

On half-moon day I am off the ship within ten minutes of closing out my shift, twenty minutes after I\u2019m usually in the water. I\u2019ve always been an ocean swimmer, salt water fixes everything for me, but there\u2019s a huge difference between daring to dangle your feet to the ankles in the numbing cold water across the street from where I grew up and diving directly into the sapphire water here.<\/p>\n

I usually alternate my time between being in the water and lying out with a book (you\u2019d be surprised how little time I actually get to read these days!) but today I had other \u2013 granted very tentative \u2013 plans.<\/p>\n

The horseback riding excursion is the most popular on Half Moon, and it\u2019s nearly impossible to land a paid slot as crew let alone an escort. Since I always forget to put my name down in advance I have always missed the chance to participate since there\u2019s never any room left by the time I make the attempt, but still, when I ended up sitting behind one of the ShoreEx girls on the tender ride over to the island I figured it was at least worth a shot.<\/p>\n

Hey Clara, meant to ask you \u2013 do you happen to have any room left on the horseback riding this call?<\/i><\/p>\n

Actually, we have one slot\u2026you want it?<\/i><\/p>\n

YES PLEASE!<\/i><\/p>\n

I am so far from an expert rider it\u2019s not even funny, but I can at least keep my seat on a horse, and I\u2019ve always loved it. I find it very peaceful, especially since with these kinds of trail animals they already know where they\u2019re going, you don\u2019t have to do<\/i> anything except kick them up a bit when they feel like falling behind. For the most part you can just sit back and enjoy the view. Or at least you do if the Jamaican guide doesn\u2019t try and talk you to death first \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

Why you so quiet?<\/i><\/p>\n

Because I just AM! I deal with people all day, I like to not talk once in a while.<\/i><\/p>\n

Oh, okay then.<\/i><\/p>\n

Once we\u2019d taken our trail ride around the island, they had us dismount and swapped out the horses, or more importantly, swapped out the saddles. Once I was securely mounted on my quiet little paint horse (who reminded me painfully of the very first horse I\u2019d ever written back at camp many more years ago than I\u2019d care to remember, man I loved that horse) \u2013 one of the other guides stands beside me and puts one of my hands on the reins and the other on the handle at the front of the saddle:<\/p>\n

Steering. Seatbelt. Got that miss?<\/i><\/p>\n

Got it.<\/i><\/p>\n

Hang on!<\/i><\/p>\n

And then the horses crashed into the water at a gallop.<\/p>\n

Riding a horse through the surf is akin to riding a rollercoaster with legs. You really do have to hang on for dear life, but it is so<\/i> much fun. I\u2019m ashamed to say there are no pictures, the professional photographer was only there for the morning sessions and my own camera remained firmly attatched to my beltloop (there is no way you can let go of the saddle to take pictures unless you want to end up in the water).<\/p>\n

Yet another thing off the bucket list. At this rate I\u2019m going to have to start a new list!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am the first to admit that I\u2019m not a sun-baby, but for Half-Moon Key I make an exception. The company owns this island, and it boasts one of the best beaches in the Bahamas. The water here is so … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,48,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-below-the-waterline","category-med-2013","category-ports-of-call"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3GtNE-HP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2717"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3403,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2717\/revisions\/3403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bloodinyoursaltwater.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}