Meraviglia at Ocean Cay
All the major cruise lines have private islands in the Caribbean, some more than one. Most all of them have an island in the Bahamas. MSC is no exception with their island called Ocean Cay Marine Reserve. We had two stops there on our 11-day cruise on MSC Meraviglia. It’s a fairly small island so it’s not that hard to hike all around it, but they do have shuttles that will take people who can’t walk that far or who just don’t want to. The island is actually made up of two separate islands. The main island where the ship docks is connected to the smaller one by a bridge.
north and south beaches on either side of the lagoon between the two islands that make up Ocean Cay
The island was formerly an industrial mining site, which literature about the island says was for sand evacuation. Beaches in some places are not naturally the white sand beach tourists gravitate to so sand is sometimes brought in from elsewhere to create those white sand beaches – or to fill in islands that are mainly mangroves rather than dry land. That was not likely the purpose for the sand from this island though as it was mined for aragonite which is a naturally occurring calcium carbonate crystal used in the production of cement and steel.
view of part of the island from the ship
It took several years to transform the former industrial site into a tourist destination. MSC designated the surrounding waters as a marine reserve. Restoration efforts to the island began with clean-up of discarded industrial debris from the island and the ocean around it. Fish like structure and there wasn’t much of that at the designated swimming beaches so they mainly hung out near the breakwaters that lined the ends of many of the beaches and some edges of the lagoon between the two islands. The breakwaters are probably there to prevent erosion rather than to create structure for fish, but they work for that too. Hopefully over time as the island recovers from its industrial past more marine life will find a home there. There is a reef near the lighthouse, but people are not allowed in the water in that area so I have no idea what sort of sealife resides there.
shops at Ocean Cay
The first thing you come to after disembarking the ship is their welcome pavilion, which has a tower and transport stations for people who want to ride the shuttles. There’s a rentals and excursions shack off to one side and shops along the main walkway.
employee housing
Not far from there is housing for workers who live on the island, but that area is not open to guests. A bit farther up the walkway there’s a beach for crew only which is also not open to guests so it’s nice to see they give the crew somewhere to go since they are most likely not allowed to use the passenger facilities.
snack shack at Bimini Beach
There’s a big main barbecue area that serves lunch not too far from the dock, and snack shacks and bars around the island near the various beaches. There are also restrooms near all the main tourist areas and an expensive ice cream shop not far from the dock.
pathway to the lighthouse
One pathway leads to a lighthouse, in which people can book a lighthouse climb excursion to the top. At the time of our cruise it only cost $9 if booked pre-cruise online or $10 if booked onboard. A big bar with a lot of outdoor seating sits at the foot of the lighthouse so it must be a popular spot to hang out. The lighthouse is out on the end of a sort of point with the reef on the far side where people aren’t allowed to swim or snorkel. They are allowed on the side nearest the ship where a shark net makes a boundary for how far people are allowed to swim out from the beach. That is the nearest beach to the ship.
this cove is for the birds
We walked past one cove that looked like it had been a nice swimming beach with platforms out in the water that people could swim to, but it was roped off and closed when we were there. It looked like a recent hurricane had pulled a lot of sand out of that cove as most of it had a steep rocky drop-off at the water’s edge and even the part that was more level was all rocks. On our way back there were a couple giant pelicans and some sort of crane or something enjoying that abandoned swimming hole. Perhaps either nature or MSC have or will put some sand back on that beach so it can be open again for human use.
relaxing on Bimini Beach
Both maps of the island provided by the ship and views of the island from the ship show dark areas near some of the beaches. In a lot of places dark areas mean reefs, which means good snorkeling. We hiked over to the one called Bimini Beach on the map, which besides being the farthest from the ship and therefore likely to be the least crowded, it also had a large dark area on the map. Big yellow buoys some distance from shore most likely indicated the end of the swimming and snorkeling area because wave runners often went by quite fast not far beyond the buoys. I also saw a kayak out there.
breakwater at the edge of Bimini Beach
Near shore the water had a lot of sand mixed into it and was often too murky to see anything at all – not even the bottom when it is just a foot or two deep and you think you are walking on sand until in some areas you come to a rocky ledge. The farther from shore and deeper the water the clearer it got. Out by the buoy it was fairly clear. The dark areas turned out just to be seagrass in the sand, no reefs or structure of any sort which meant fish there were very scarce. I did see some really big ones swim by at the edge of the murky area, but that was it.
fish in the rocks at the breakwater
Out by the buoy there were a couple ladies who had not seen any fish at all. That was at about the middle of that stretch of beach. They took off one way looking for fish and I went the other toward the breakwater at that edge of the beach since the breakwaters looked to be the only structure there. I’d gone out barefoot as I don’t like dealing with snorkel fins in the sand and it looked calm enough not to need them so it took probably twice as long to swim to the breakwater as it would have with fins, but since there weren’t any time restraints that didn’t matter. When I got to the breakwater I first saw some sergeant majors, then some small parrotfish and some other little fish. They were all small. Some were youngsters that haven’t grown very big yet and the rest were just small varieties of fish.
bridge between the islands
On the way back to the ship we saw people standing on the bridge looking at the rocks below. They said they were watching crabs crawl around down there, but I couldn’t find the crabs they were looking at. Crabs do like rocks though, especially for something to hide under. John said he saw them, but I never did.
barbecue pavilion
The barbecue pavilion was packed with long lines stretching out quite a distance on both sides and we’re not stand in line if you don’t have to people so we went back to the ship for lunch on our first visit. The second time around there were only 1900 people on the ship instead of the 4700 on the first part of our back-to-back cruise so there wasn’t such a crowd and we tried the barbecue that time. MSC isn’t the best with lines, often making them slower than necessary. They did open a second line when we were about halfway through, which cleared up the wait fairly quickly. There was a variety of salads, barbecued chicken and pork ribs, fresh fruit, rice and beans, cookies and brownies, burgers, hot dogs, and fries so a pretty good variety of things, some of which were different than what is available onboard.
Sunset Beach
On the second visit we decided to try a different beach since the snorkeling hadn’t been that great at Bimini Beach where we went the first time with most of the seabed being sand and seagrass and almost no fish other than at the breakwater on the edge of the beach. We tried Sunset Beach on the second time around. It had some rocky structure at one edge that looked like the sort of place fish would hang out, but the water there was so murky not even the rocks were visible, let alone any fish who may or may not have been within the rocks. Getting too near those rocks meant swimming blind rather than seeing anything underwater.
fish at Sunset Beach
Swimming away from the rocky shoreline, out deep enough to find clear water and moving toward being in the water in front of the area set up with beach chairs, the bottom itself was rock near the rocky area of the shoreline, with dips and bumps making structure enough for small fish. Further up the shoreline more in line with where the beach chairs were the bottom changed to sand covered in decent sized rocks and not as many small fish as the part where the bottom was rock, but still enough to spot them fairly frequently. Once in awhile a bigger fish swam by (mostly yellow snappers), but those were few and far between. Though not great, the snorkeling was definitely better at Sunset Beach than it had been at Bimini Beach.
lighthouse
After having had a chance to check out the lighthouse a bit on our first visit we decided to book the lighthouse climb for the second one. The lighthouse climb is well worth the $10 charged for that excursion, at least if you get a good guide like the one we had. As always the quality of the guide you happen to get can make or break an excursion. She mentioned that the snorkeling is good in the corner of the marked swimming beach in front of the ship that is closest to the lighthouse (Lighthouse Bay), which is the only area near the lighthouse where swimming or snorkeling is allowed.
fish by the shark net
Our second visit was an overnight. I wanted to go out for an early morning pre-breakfast snorkel as soon as there was daylight to try out that area by the lighthouse, but there was a gate shut across the entry and passengers weren’t allowed off the ship until 8am. I did go out then and try snorkeling from that beach. It’s the closest one to the ship and has lots of colorful chairs and beach umbrellas, but most of the chairs there are plastic folding chairs. There’s a few adirondack chairs, but no loungers. There weren’t many people on the beach at 8am, but there was one guy laying on some sort of cushiony thing. I don’t know if there are a few of those provided, if it is something you have to rent, or something he brought himself. The little folding chairs would not be comfortable for spending the day in, but as a place to put stuff while snorkeling one of them worked fine for me. The water is shallow and sandy at the edge of the beach. Over on the end nearest the lighthouse it gets rocky before it gets deep. There’s little fish near the shore. They get bigger as you go out farther. It’s not all that deep even out by the shark net where there was a school of pretty good-sized fish that followed me all around. Our lighthouse tour guide did mention that they feed the fish there so they are pretty friendly.
lighthouse show
After dark the lighthouse puts on a show with thousands of ever-changing LED lights that make different colors and patterns. It can be seen from the ship if you find a good viewpoint as well as from the shore. The small bit of outdoor promenade deck that Meraviglia has was a good spot to watch, on the Starboard side anyway since that was the side facing shore. People with balconies in the right place could watch from their cabin, but ours was on the other side of the ship. On our first visit the ship left soon after the lighthouse show so not many people watched from shore, but since the ship stayed overnight the second time there were two lighthouse displays an hour or two apart with a beach party going from the start of the first lighthouse show to the end of the second one so a lot of people went ashore for that.
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