Castaway Cay-home away from home

I really love going to Castaway Cay in The Bahamas. It is one of my favorite places. After missing our port in St. Thomas, I was particularly happy and anxious to get there. 

Because we docked 2 hours ahead of schedule, they moved up the 5K, which was nice. It was hot enough at 7:30, I'd hate to have been running at 9! They also did the race at 9, for those who did not care to wake up early. 

All finished. We did about the same times as last time. I was disappointed in my 34-ish minutes. I guess next time I'll go to bed early the night before. I can do it in a lot less time than that when I run here in ST. Louis. 

After the race, we got cleaned up and grabbed the girls to head to the beach. They were excited to get going. There was bug repellent lotion right off the ship. Kiersten overheard someone say it was "for Zika". She got upset and said, "but I don't want to have a baby! Or a baby with a small head." I didn't realize she had such a misconception about the lotion repelling mosquitoes, instead of causing you to get Zika and be pregnant. We made her use the lotion, but did not see any mosquitoes while we were there. 

We had to get a picture with Captain Jack. I think Kara was more excited about meeting him than any other character. Evie and Kiersten didn't care as much. He liked Ben's Bacardi shirt. 

Beach babies!

We all had a fun beach day!

The first stop for the girls was this fun obstacle course in the ocean. Evie had a tricky time getting out there, but I helped her get over, and then back to the beach again. 

Seashells were collected, and castles were built. 

The day started out so nice. You'd never guess that we'd all be running back to the ship an hour early, and heading out to avoid a huge storm. (Matthew again...)

We try to do a little snorkeling whenever we can. There were not a whole lot of fish around the family beach. 

They also wanted to spend time on the super fun slide. 

The line was long, so we didn't stay there too long. The kids were ready for lunch anyway. 

There were a few fish, and the kids tried to catch them unsuccessfully. 

The girls wanted to go to the kids club on the beach, so we headed over to the adults only area at Serenity Bay. I did a lot of snorkeling, while Ben headed over to yet another mixology/tasting. There were very few people over there, so I was able to see a lot more things without all the sand getting stirred up. 

I saw a few of these fish, and started to get a few pictures. Out of nowhere, I was completely surrounded by them. They are small and harmless, but it was slightly unnerving to be surrounded by tons of fish just running into me from all sides. I stood up for a moment to get out of the fray, and then my camera died. I was disappointed, because I saw a large rock right after, and there were some really large, more colorful fish under there, and I had wasted my battery on pictures of all of these Sgt. Majors, that I've seen lots of times. 

I even ended up seeing a stingray back near the beach. It was in very shallow water, and I was able to get fairly close. I was mad at myself for not charging the camera earlier. Some guy decided to try to catch the stingray, so it swam off, and I didn't see him again. I heard from our dinner server that it had been around a bunch of times throughout the day. 

It started raining, and in an effort to beat the storm, the restaurant, and shops were closed down early so people would head back to the ship. We picked up the girls from the beach club, and headed back in. Even though we left a little early, it was a fantastic day, and one I wouldn't mind living over again sometime. (Without the fish frenzy, though.)