Little San Salvador Island

Little San Salvador Island, also known as Half Moon Cay, is one of about 700 islands that make up the archipelago of The Bahamas. It is located roughly halfway between Eleuthera and Cat Island. It is a private island, owned by Holland America Line, which uses it as a port of call for the cruise ships it operates in the region. Prior to being owned by HAL, Little San Salvador was the private island of Norwegian Cruise Line.

Little San Salvador Island is located about 100 miles southeast of Nassau. Holland America Line purchased the island in December, 1996 for a price of $6 million USD. It has since developed 50 acres (200,000 m²) of the 2,400-acre (9.7 km²) island, with the stated goal of maintaining as much habitat as possible for wildlife. The island is also a significant nesting area for waterfowl. The island does not have deep water docking, requiring the use of tenders for cruise ship passengers to disembark and embark.

Activities offered on the island include swimming, sunning, scuba diving, jet-skiing, cycling, and snorkeling. Deep-sea fishing, parasailing, glass-bottom boat rides, and nature walks also are available. A variety of water toys are available for rent, including Hobie catamarans, Sunfish sailboats, windsurfing sailboards, and kayaks. There are volleyball and basketball courts, horseshoes, shuffleboard, a fitness trail with exercise stations, horseback riding, and nature trails for hiking.

Half Moon

Half Moon refers to the two lunar phases commonly known as first quarter and last quarter.

Examples of Half Moon used in culture...

Human settlements

Watercraft

Half Moon (Efteling)

Half Moon (or "Halve Maen" in Dutch) is a Pirate Ship ride at Efteling theme park in the Netherlands. Designed by Ton van de Ven and manufactured by Intamin, it opened its doors in 1982.

History and details

The Pirate Ship is not actually themed as a “Pirate Ship”, but a copy of the VOC - merchant Halve Maen of the Dutch East India Co. VOC, the first limited company which centuries later merged into Unilever. The theming for the surroundings of the ride consists of a harbour in the Anton Pieck style.

It is the largest Pirate Ship in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records.

The Ride

Ride Height: 20 meters
Highest Swing: 25 meters
Maximum Speed: 54 km/h
g-forces: 0 negative
Capacity: 85 visitors

References

Coordinates: 51°38′56″N 5°03′12″E / 51.64881°N 5.0534°E / 51.64881; 5.0534

Half Moon (shipwreck)

The Half Moon (also known as the Germania and Exen) is a racing sailboat which sank in 1930 near Miami, Florida, United States. It is located outside Bear Cut off Key Biscayne. Originally christened Germania, the racing yacht was built by Krupp-Germania-Werft in 1908 in Kiel, Germany. In 1914 the yacht visited Southampton, England, to water and was taken as a prize of war. After changing hands several times, and suffering at the hands of an especially violent storm off Virginia, the yacht became a floating restaurant and dance hall off Miami, Florida, sinking near Key Biscayne in 1930. It became the seventh Florida Underwater Archaeological Preserve when it was dedicated in 2000. This was followed on May 31, 2001 with its addition to the US National Register of Historic Places.

References

External links

Cay

A cay (/ˈkiː/ or /ˈkeɪ/), also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island on the surface of a coral reef. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans (including in the Caribbean and on the Great Barrier Reef and Belize Barrier Reef).

Formation and composition

A cay forms when ocean currents transport loose sediment across the surface of a reef to a depositional node, where the current slows or converges with another current, releasing its sediment load. Gradually, layers of deposited sediment build up on the reef surface. Such nodes occur in windward or leeward areas of reef where surfaces sometimes occur around an emergent outcrop of old reef or beach rock.

The island resulting from sediment accumulation is made up almost entirely of biogenic sediment – the skeletal remains of plants and animals – from the surrounding reef ecosystems. If the accumulated sediments are predominantly sand, then the island is called a cay; if they are predominantly gravel, the island is called a motu.

Cay (band)

Cay were a London-based alternative rock band (containing members from the Netherlands, Sweden, England and Northern Ireland) who were active in the late 1990s. The band released one album and recorded several radio sessions for the BBC.

History

Cay formed in Camden, London in the mid-1990s around the nucleus of Dutch singer/rhythm guitarist Anet Mook and Swedish guitarist/pianist Nicky Olofsson, who were musical and romantic partners. The lineup solidified with the addition of London bass guitarist Tom Harrison and Northern Irish drummer Mark Bullock. The band name was hastily improvised from the initials of one of their demo tracks ("Cool As You") when Mook was talking to a record company.

"'Reasonable Ease...' is technically very variant with fast bits, slow bits, etc, but what we play within those parts is actually quite simple. On the other hand, a track like 'Better than Myself' is structurally very straightforward, but the parts we play that make up that structure are more technically difficult than a track that appears superficially to be pretty tricky. I guess it's safe to say that most of our songs are challenging in some way, even 'School' has a quirky time change throughout that means we can't fall asleep in the middle of it! In short, all our songs are fun to play. No-one ever complains that a part is boring for them to play, or if they do they get told to shut up and use their imagination to liven it up. I think that's what makes us a little bit better than a straightforward punk band."

Maya mythology

Maya mythology is part of Mesoamerican mythology and comprises all of the Maya tales in which personified forces of nature, deities, and the heroes interacting with these play the main roles. Other parts of Maya oral tradition (such as animal tales and many moralising stories) do not properly belong to the domain of mythology, but rather to legend and folk tale.

Sources

The oldest written myths date from the 16th century and are found in historical sources from the Guatemalan Highlands. The most important of these documents is the Popol Vuh or 'Book of the Council' which contains Quichean creation stories and some of the adventures of the Hero Twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque

Yucatán is an equally important region. The Books of Chilam Balam contain mythological passages of great antiquity, and mythological fragments are found scattered among the early-colonial Spanish chronicles and reports, chief among them Diego de Landa's Relación, and in the dictionaries compiled by the early missionaries.