Bahamas
My Pirate Cruise
I promised a blog post on my Bahamas trip! I promise I didn’t forget. I was waiting on the pictures from the underwater camera to get sent to me. Now that I have those, I can finally share my real sea adventure!
First, before we ever boarded our ship, we stopped by the Pirate Museum in Nassau. Turned out it was closed. SO BUMMED. But I took pictures with all the things outside!
I obviously didn’t get carried away at all.
Anyway, then it was ship time!
This is the Liberty Clipper. I spent a week on this ship, and it was the coolest experience of my life. There’s something about being on the open sea, unable to see land in any direction. It’s beautiful, adventurous, yet also soothing. Sleeping on a ship is like being rocked to sleep every night. I’ve never slept so well.
Here are some pictures of the ship up close. I was excited about even the simplest ship items, like that green gangplank.
The ship fit the twenty-four passengers and eight crew members snugly. The rooms were small, with only about two feet (if that) between the bunks and the wall. And the bathrooms! Picture an airplane bathroom, except there’s also a shower head in there. You close the toilet seat and put this flap down over the toilet paper so it doesn’t get wet. Then you’re good to go.
Trip Activities!
Day 1:
We sailed to Meeks Patch, an island with wild pigs!
They were so cute. We brought slop from the ship to feed them. We even pet them. I guess they’re used to visitors. They didn’t have any problem sleeping while we were watching.
Afterward we played at the beach off the island.
That night I got a picture of the ship at dusk before we returned to sleep for the night.
Day 2:
We stopped at Spanish Wells and drove around the island on golf carts. The crew prepared a scavenger hunt for us, so we had fun driving around and looking at things. There was also this awesome bridge spanning across the two islands. Naturally, we had to jump off into the gorgeous water below. Here’s my mom and cousin getting used to the water!
Afterward, we had lunch on the beach. Then I decided to go snorkeling. There wasn’t a reef or anything, but the water was so clear—it was just fascinating to be able to see so far. I’m from Oregon, and the ocean water there is NOT clear. Or warm. Snorkeling turned out to be totally worth it. First I found the biggest hermit crab I’ve ever seen. The shell was a foot long, one of those spiral snail shells. I almost picked it up to take to shore before I noticed the legs sticking out it. Just enormous! Shortly after that, I spotted a stingray half buried in the sand. I couldn’t tell it was a ray at first because its tail and most of its body were hidden. Sadly, I didn’t have the underwater camera with me this time. So no pictures of those.
Day 3:
Snorkeling day! We went exploring first around a reef. And there were fish to see!
And then later in the day was my favorite part of the trip. We went snorkeling around a sunken ship! It wasn’t an ancient ship—it was made of metal, but it was still amazing. All these fish were living in it! It was just incredible. Here are some pictures of what I saw!
First, here is what you can see of the sunken ship ABOVE the water.
Here is me getting the nerve to jump off the bow of the ship so I can investigate the sunken ship.
And here is the ship below the water!
I dove deeper to explore!
There were just so many fish!
SO MANY FISH!
And watching over them all was a barracuda.
Oh wait, SIX BARRACUDA!
They are scary looking fish. I couldn’t fully capture them in these photos, but for those who have seen Finding Nemo, the barracuda is the fish at the beginning of the movie that eats all the eggs. SCARY.
But so cool to see.
Day 4:
We sailed to Hatchet Bay, where we went cave exploring. I’ve been in caves before, but I’ve never seen anything like this. The stalactites and stalagmites were enormous!
Naturally the adults aboard the cruise had jokes to make about this next picture.
The best part of the caves was this section that went deeper below the surface. You had to take a rickety ladder to get down. And the cave was filled with water! It went up to my waist in the deepest section, and I waded through it. It was like something right out of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag. Only my aunt was brave enough to do it with me. I have a video of this section, but my blog won’t let me show videos! So I’ve posted it to my Instagram. Click HERE to view!
After the cave, we went on a short hike to a cliff at the edge of the island overlooking the ocean.
Naturally, I had to take a selfie.
From up here, we saw a sea turtle (not pictured), which was really cool. One of the other passengers found a piece of fishing line that disappeared under the water. He pulled on it, and a clump a seaweed came up with it. A bunch of needlefish came racing after it. If you squint, you can see one this this picture—top left corner. I was in such a hurry to catch the image, my finger got in the way.
That evening, we sailed into this lagoon-shaped port to dock the ship. The gap to get into the docking area was no more than thirty feet wider than the ship itself. So there was about 15 feet of clearance on either side. It was fun watching the captain sail us through.
Day 5: The Glass Window and moon pools.
It turns out the moon pools aren’t as exciting as the tide pools we have in Oregon. There wasn’t actually anything alive to see in them, but they were still pretty. The waves were violent, constantly crashing into the hollowed out rocks.
The Glass Window is this section where only a thin strip of island separates the Bahamian water from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s incredible, because on the Bahamian side, the water is smooth and gentle, and on the Atlantic side, it’s violent with constant waves crashing into the island.
Day 6:
Sailing back home! Why yes, I did help raise the sails. (I’m in purple.)
Day 7
I felt spoiled. I was the only one who got to climb the mast. Granted, that was because everyone else was too chicken to climb. It was only 60 feet. 
I kept an eye out for pirates.
The boat looks different from up there.
I tried taking the ultimate selfie, but mostly it’s just a closeup of my face.
Thankfully Kyle (the crew member who took me up top) helped me out. Yeah, don’t ask where he was standing to get that shot. There were NO handholds.
All in all, I’ve decided that a pirate’s life is for me—aside from the pillaging and plundering part. I seriously had a blast and could have stayed on that ship for months. It also didn’t hurt that I was served three delicious meals a day that I didn’t have to cook and could drink as much coke as I wanted.
If anyone wants more of a hands-on experience rather than just lounging on a big cruise ship, I highly recommend Wind Jammer Cruises! I’m dying to go again!