Nassau, Bahamas

The third and final port of our family cruise was in Nassau, capital of the Bahamas. I was surprised to find that Nassau was much more city than beach paradise, in fact I never did see a beach while we were there. The minute we left the ship, we were bombarded with people peddling everything—carriage rides, tours, taxis, t-shirts, jewelry—I was even asked on numerous occasions if I wanted my (very short) hair braided. I'm used to this kind of peddling in New York, but in Nassau it was concentrated and constant.

Once we got past the markets, the streets were beautiful in a gritty, sherbet-colored, sun-faded way. The first photo I took was of a door—blue, orange and yellow—and my mom looked at me and said "You're probably the only person who comes to the Bahamas and takes a photo of a door."

We walked around for a little bit before we had to meet the rest of our family for a glass bottom boat tour. I was actually expecting our boat to have a real glass bottom, but it was more like a few windows on the floor of the lower level, and now I'm not even sure if what I had expected is even physically possible (I should probably just stick to land-based adventures).

The tour took us in between the islands of New Providence (where Nassau is located) and Paradise. Paradise is the where the Atlantis resort is located, as well as some pretty elaborate celebrity homes (our guide pointed out the homes of Oprah, JK Rowling, Mary Kay, Elvis Presley, Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and Sean Connery). We stopped and creeped on a coral reef through the "glass bottom," which was pretty cool to see.

We saw what appears to be wreckage of some kind—a plane?—and a bunch of different fish, including really creepy needle-nose creatures, which further proved my theory that the ocean is a scary and crazy place, full of alien beings—best admired from a safe distance, preferably on land, in the shade and with a cocktail in hand.

Cococay, Bahamas

The second stop on our family cruise was Cococay, which is a private island in the Bahamas that is actually being leased by the cruise company, Royal Caribbean. Because of this I felt like we were on a stage set or an amusement park version of the Bahamas. That's not to say it was terrible, it was just odd.

The beach had beautiful white sand and the water was bathtub warm. The water was so shallow that you could walk really far out into the ocean without it getting more than knee-deep. I walked out as far as I could before I started to get creeped out by the ocean life—we saw jellyfish, regular fish and what were maybe sea cucumbers (?), and my uncles reported seeing starfish and small nurse sharks.

This was my first time on a Bahamian island and no matter how manufactured, it was really nice to finally see the indescribably blue water of the Caribbean and spend the day lounging by a lagoon, sipping an icy (aka alcoholic) beverage and soaking up all the sun my SPF-100'd skin could handle.