Ya Mon! Jamaica!!

Winter vacation 2020 took us to Jamaica with Tom Sr (aka Dad), Linda, Pete, Laurie and friends of Pete and Laurie: Steve and Sandy & Joe and Jodie. We utilized Tom and Linda’s vacation club and went to Azul Beach resort in Negril. I did not make daily posts because the majority of our time was spent lounging on the beach, napping, and reading. Not all that exciting to read about in a blog, but we did want to jot a few of our memories down.

We had no issues or significant stories from our trip down. Everything went smooth with no delays. We were happy to indulge in a few Red Stripes on the drive from the airport to the resort. When we got to the resort we had a warm welcome and was assigned a butler. We were asked what type of pillow everybody wanted and if/what aroma therapy we wanted in our room. Never had that before. Since I bring my own pillow I did not find this to be a big deal and wasn’t that interested in the smells. Tom picked a scent but they didn’t use it until halfway through the trip. When they did it smelled like old ladies perfume. Did not like it at all!! The next night we left a note for our maid to please not leave the scent again.

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Our first full-day was cloudy and windy and cool. It was not a day for the beach and after breakfast we tossed around what to do and eventually got with our butler to open the member’s only club so we could gather in a room with decent space to play games. We decided to play Phase 10. With five of us playing, it did eat up several hours of the afternoon. Tom and Pete made a bet to make it more interesting and bet $1/point difference. At one point Pete was down over $200 but he made a comeback and Tom ended up owing Pete $20. Linda was the overall winner of the game. It was a good way to spend time with family and pass the afternoon on a dreary day.

Later in the afternoon I walked down the beach and found a nice little cove where I found starfish washed on the beach and other treasures such as conch shells. I talked to a Jamaican who was on his way to help a friend and he educated me on the starfish and other shells. I placed the starfish back in the ocean and picked up a couple of shells. He told me the ocean was vomiting that day with the big waves bringing in all kinds of stuff. I saw probably 6 or 7 sunglasses, all kinds of different cups/glasses from the resorts, and sand toys. The treasure hunter in me enjoyed looking through the area.

The next day and all following days were perfect sunny, warm, weather days. I wanted to get up early and head back to my treasure trove to see what else the ocean had “vomited”. I got there shortly after sunrise and was so excited to see all the conch shells that had appeared. There was way more seaweed then the day before. As I started looking the local Jamaicans that set up shop near by started looking too. I think they didn’t want to lose out on the conch shells they saw me picking, but they did talk to me to see if I was taking shells or ones that still had the conch inside. I of course don’t want shells with a living organism inside, but it sounded like they did. So as I found some that were living I gave them what I found and they gave me a couple of neat shells they didn’t want. After picking up a plastic gallon container that had been cut in half to help me carry me treasures I decided I had found my share and walked back. The next day I returned back on a walk in the morning with Tom and was shocked at how the landscape had changed again. Now it was completely covered with seaweed with no sand showing and no treasures on top of the seaweed. It felt like the beach was 3-8 inches deep of seaweed. I walked by this spot every day and it didn’t change too much since the 3-8 inches of seaweed. My local Jamaican friends at that spot told me that the seaweed would probably be buried and covered over by sand from the ocean in 2-3 weeks. What the ocean giveth, the ocean taketh away.

I read three books over the course of the week. It’s been a long time since I read that much, but I really enjoyed each of the stories I read: “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens, “Acts of Treason” by Vince Flynn, and “Dancing Girls” by M.M. Chouinard. “Acts of Treason” I had brought probably on 3 previous vacations and had never read it so was glad to have finally gotten to it. Tom spent his time staying out of the sun watching training videos, sleeping, and watching cyrpto.

One of the days Steve booked a fishing trip for four people. I joined him, Tom Sr, and Joe. We were on a tiny little fishing boat and spent 4 hours trolling covering a lot of ocean and didn’t get a bite. At one point we passed a seaweed patch with plastic bottles and buoy. The guide put out a line with a little fish on a hook and caught three jack fish. He let me pull up the line, but that’s really all it was. He did the fishing and I pulled the line. They said they were bait fish, but we never used them while we were out. We did see some dolphins, flying fish, and a marlin jumping out of the water. It was relaxing to be out on the ocean but bummer we didn’t catch anything.

On another day Steve really wanted to try parasailing. He had never done it before so he asked everyone if they wanted to go with him. He even said it would be his treat. After everyone reluctantly shook their head no, I said yes! Glad I did. It has been awhile since I had gone parasailing. It was quite enjoyable. Steve liked it too!

One night after dinner we decided it was too early to turn in so we decided to play a card game. I taught Pete, Laurie, Tom Sr, and Tom Garbage. Dad suggested that maybe we should only play to 5 instead of down to 1 (he thought it would take too long), but after he was in the lead he wanted to play the game through. He ended up winning! He now says that he likes the game. LoL. On another night we didn’t have the space to play Garbage so we played “Shit On Your Neighbor” for money. For those that don’t know you start with 3 chips/markers (or in our case $1 bills) and you get dealt a card. You want to have the highest card. If you don’t like it you can take the persons card to your right and give them your card (hence shit on your neighbor). If your the person that has the lowest card out of everybody you have to toss your chip/marker/$1 bill into the post. The last person with 1 chip/marker/$1 bill left wins. Tom won the first two rounds, I won the next, at that point Dad said he was going to bed. We kept playing and eventually everybody won a round. It was a lot of fun. The funniest thing that came out of that night though was when Dad forgot to take his cell phone with him. Tom had the idea of putting an obscene picture on his phone as a joke to teach him a lesson. So with Linda giving up Dad’s unlock code Tom put a picture of a penis on his wallpaper. He was laughing so hard at what an evil genius he was. Even the next morning I woke up to Tom laughing in bed as he was thinking about it. Unfortunately we didn’t get to see Dad’s reaction, but Linda told us how it played out. In the morning Dad picked up his phone glanced down and didn’t notice it, then when he looked a second time was like “How in the hell did this get on here?” and Linda said “I don’t know. Where have you gone on your phone?”. Dad getting mad said “I didn’t go anywhere.” I forget what else was in their conversation but in short order Linda said “Maybe it was your son.” and then Dad laughed. He was no longer mad and thought it was funny. He came and met us at breakfast and asked Tom to show him how to do it and I said “What? Show you how to put more dicks on your phone?” LoL. He meant showed him how to change the wallpaper. So two lessons learned for Dad. Don’t leave/forget your cell phone and now he knows how to change the wallpaper picture.

Overall we thought the food at the restaurants and buffets at the resort were very good. We even had a candlelight dinner on the beach on the last night with Pete, Laurie, Joe and Jodie. No one food item stood out as the “best ever” of the trip but all really good.

The only excursion we all did (with the exception of Dad) is that we went on a catamaran ride. We were picked up by a small transport boat that stopped at another resort to pick up more people. We sat tight squeezed in the boat roasting in the sun (no breeze) as we waited for three people who were late. Tom said I hope they’re not American. However when they showed up there was a big guy wearing a Green Bay Packer’s shirt. Great. They were from Wisconsin. The little boat took us out to the catamaran. We sailed out to the reef where we snorkeled for about 45 minutes. It was ok snorkeling. Next we sailed to some sea caves where you could jump out and swim to. Since I had just dried off I didn’t feel like getting back in the ocean, but Tom did. In that same area local Jamaicans were jumping in the ocean from cliffs then would swim over to our catamaran to collect tips. As we rode over to our last stop of Rick’s cafe we received a meal of jerk chicken, rice and beans, and potato salad. I thought the meal was pretty good. At Rick’s cafe those that wanted to jump off the cliffs could go over and give it a try. Tom was the only one from our group to do it. He’s afraid of heights so I was surprised to see him go right up the second highest level for tourists and jump right off. He landed a little funny but for the most part was ok. He’s still complaining of a sore arm. After the big jump he went off the smaller jump (about 8 feet high) several times. By the time he was shuttled back to the catamaran the sun had set. We didn’t back to the resort until almost 8:00. It was a long afternoon, but I’m glad we did it.

Finally, on our flight home, we learned that we missed a 7.7 earthquake 80 miles from Jamaica by just over an hour. I’m sure we would have felt it.

Well as usual, this blog post ended up longer then I thought it would be. I guess we did more then just lay around for a week (but we did do a lot of that). Thankful for another great beach vacation.

Stats of the Trip

Jess’s Longest Walk of the Week: 6.5 miles
Books Read: 3
Conch Shells Brought Home: 6
Geocaches Found: 1 Earthcache I have yet to log. No others in the area to find.