marine a trip to MSC Cruises’ private island in the Bahamas
DESTINATIONS OCEAN CAY | CRUISE
a
s the board wobbles gently beneath me, I manage to clamber to my feet and
paddle off across Ocean Cay’s calm lagoon. My stand-up paddleboarding skills are functional rather than stylish – I can get around, and love doing it, but it’s hardly graceful. You can see the effort. I’m the opposite of the proverbial swan that glides along elegantly without showing that it’s paddling furiously beneath. Unlike me, Ocean Cay itself is very much the swan of cruise lines’ private islands. On the surface, it’s all about low effort, maximum reward. Expansive white beaches are lined with loungers; bars right on the sand dispense giant cocktails; and there’s a secluded spa, where you can have a massage in a shady cabana as the sea breezes ruffle your hair. If you’re trying to tempt cruisers back onto the water, this is the way to do it.
OPERATION CLEAN-UP There’s a lot more to Ocean Cay than meets the eye, however. This swan has had to paddle like hell to get where it is today after starting off as rather an ugly duckling. When MSC Cruises leased the site
from the Bahamian government, it wasn’t a particularly pretty prospect. Formerly a sand-mining facility, the island resembled a rubbish dump. “I snorkelled here before we cleaned it up, and you couldn’t see the
seabed for tyres and cables,” says Michelle McGregor, Ocean Cay’s manager. The clean-up operation was massive. Chemical spills were remediated, and more than 1,500 tons of scrap metal was removed. Then 5,000 trees and 75,000 plants and shrubs were introduced. Perhaps most significantly, a 64-square-mile marine reserve was created around the island. Large areas of coral have been replanted, replacing and creating reefs to enrich the marine ecosystem.
SUSTAINABLE SAILING All trace of Ocean Cay’s industrial past is gone. Now, visitors will find a pristine island with two miles of platinum beaches lapped by clear, Bahamas-blue water – the only clue that it hasn’t always been this way is the somewhat diminutive height of the palm trees, and these won’t take long to grow. The chance to reverse Ocean Cay’s ecological fortunes was all part of the appeal for the cruise line. It would have been simpler and cheaper to lease an untouched island where nature thrived intact, but this was a chance to make good on the line’s commitment to sustainability, which has seen it make marine operations carbon neutral, develop LNG-powered ships and set a target to eliminate single-use plastics. Ocean Cay’s radical recovery
programme has turned a site that had almost no value – either to tourists or wildlife – ²
travelweekly.co.uk 21 JANUARY 2021 41
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