Saturday April 30 - Full day of photo and water adventures

Saturday I awoke on my own at the unusual hour of 5:30 a.m.  I grabbed up my camera bag, whispered to D, and headed over to the restaurant to find a cup of coffee and wander the grounds.  The only other guests I saw were a couple who were getting ready to catch their flight back home, an author (Mark T. Sullivan) and his wife. He saw my camera bag, looked at his watch, and said "you are ambitious"... we chatted for a few minutes before they headed to the lobby to meet their driver.

The grounds are usually very calm in general, but particularly before others have woken up it is a different experience.  There is a great deal of activity everywhere, in miniature form, if you walk slowly with light feet.  Take a step, hear a shuffling of leaves, and pause... look to the source of the sound and you're likely to see a lizard or crab creeping around the gardens.

A lot of these red crabs can be found in little holes in the garden areas.  I've seen them somewhat inland before, but it still surprises me to see crabs living in groundhog like tunnels instead of tide pools.

Pause by a pool of water on the cliff edge and you may see a bird fly down to take a morning dip.

 This guy seemed to be very interested in what I was doing, he's one of the few birds that hasn't bolted at the sight of my camera.

Pause along the rock paths out by the cliffs, hold still and watch the cracks in the rocks... the crabs and hermit crabs scuttle nervously around, trying to find a hiding spot.

 These crabs are shy, scuttling away at creepy fast speeds as soon as they detect human movement.

I call him Hermy... I nearly stepped on this little guy, his shell is only 1/2 inch long at best.  This is shot with my 50-300 zoom plus macro filter.

This guy was on a garden path, I followed him along the edge until he found a mini cave to hide in.

And of course, you could also run into Tensing or Sugar, one of the resident Rhodesian ridgebacks, enjoying some early morning sun.

As others woke up I would stop and chat for a few minutes, sometimes a brief good morning, where are you from?  Other times pointing out what it is I'm sitting on the ground trying to zero in on with my zoom lens.  I shot steadily for about 2 hours, stopping back through the restaurant to refresh my coffee before taking another path, looking for fresh views.

Wandering the grounds on my own for that long, I was able to observe and enjoy so many little intricate details that would be so easy to zip past on a normal day.  It was an incredibly soothing and peaceful shooting experience.

I met up with D and G for breakfast... I went continental while they had some kind of egg dishes... then we lathered up with sunscreen while our food settled, and grabbed our gear for a little bit of snorkeling off the cliffs.

MMMmmmmm, breakfast!

This time of day had much better lighting for taking photos, though the movement of the water still made shooting straight a little difficult.  I didn't see any lion fish today, instead there were about a billion little fish swimming in a giant bait ball around the interior of the cove.  I swam through and over them several times trying to capture the magnitude of just how many billions of fish I saw, as well as trying to zoom in on some larger fish which stuck to the bottom of the sea floor.

 Can you see the two bigger fish in the center of the shot?  The one on the left is kind of yellow with spots, the one on the right is sort of dark blue.  The fish right along the cliffs are not very bright, you've gotta take a boat to the reef for brighter fish.

 All those little dash marks along the ocean floor are fish. 

 Billions and billions of little tiny fish everywhere you turn.

Here I'm trying to swim through them and they scatter.

There was a small family of yellow and black striped fish hanging out by the ladder... the babies kept hiding but the parent fish swam defensively back and forth in front of me.

G spent a little time with me in the ocean, but then was quickly done.  I, surprisingly, didn't want to stop, and I swam around outside of the cove a little ways, following some larger fish and checking out other nooks and crannies.  Not once did I feel any panic, even when I accidentally let go of my snorkel while trying to get a shot.  The waves, the fish, the depth... nothing phased me... and I didn't even fully realize it until I got out of the water.  All in all, a major milestone for me :)

I was a little waterlogged after so much time in the ocean, but G wanted to go to the pool so D went with her to hang out there while I headed across the street to pick up my lunch from Ras Rody's stand. 

 G had the pool to herself at lunch time.

I had the combo plate, which is a cup of pumpkin soup, a bed of rice and peas, calallo, a stewed veggie mix and some curried soy.  As I approached the stand there were about 4 Rastas hanging out, one with a large basket of herbs and spices for sale.

I was a little waterlogged after so much time in the ocean, but G wanted to go to the pool so D went with her to hang out there while I headed across the street to pick up my lunch from Ras Rody's stand.  I had the combo plate, which is a cup of pumpkin soup, a bed of rice and peas, calallo, a stewed veggie mix and some curried soy.  As I approached the stand there were about 4 Rastas hanging out, one with a large basket of herbs and spices for sale.

 This lunch was 600 Jamaican dollars, about 7 bucks for an incredibly filling pile of food.

I grabbed my lunch to go and went back to the pool to munch while G swam, then we ordered her lunch at the restaurant.  As she ate, another thunder storm blew through, and there was a crack of thunder so close it must have hit next door to the resort.  Every indoor table in the restaurant was filled with guests, and after the BOOM we fell silent for a few seconds, then there was a loud outcry of "Wow!" and "Woo!" and "Holy Crap!"  When the rain let up to a drizzle we dashed back to the room where we showered up and rested.  By the time we were cleaned up the rain had stopped, so we meandered down the street to a little market for a few snacks.  Back at the hotel G was right back in the pool, swimming with some new friends (a pair of twin girls around 10 years old) while D and I sat above and chatted with some guests.  After a bit of time we saw Tyrone had stopped by with a gallon jug of home made soursop juice.  (Soursops are just about out of season here, but D is a huge fan of the fruit, so Tyrone tracked down some fruit and made juice for D)  We stayed at the bar a while longer, testing out the juice with some coconut rum to see what kind of mixed drinks we could make with it, then put it in the room fridge and headed out for dinner.

Tonight we decided to go over to Ivan's, the restaurant at the resort next door... Catch a Falling Star.  I had a dish called the "Snappy Snapper", which was simmered in a sauce that had a distinctly sweet and sour flavor to it.  The grounds of Ivan's are incredibly beautiful, open stone platforms like Tensing Pen, but with a pool that has a winding river to float on, and a little bridge to walk over the canals.  As we listened to the waves crashing against the rocks we noticed a few fireflies zipping around the edge of the tables.  That was the first time I'd ever seen a firefly :)

 Plantain wrapped shrimp appetizer.  So.  Good.

My hearty helping of snapper.

After dinner we were all pretty tired from the big active day, so we went back to the hut to get ready for bed.  G crashed out, but D went out to wander the property.  I fell asleep for a bit, then woke to the sound of some wedding party guests having a great (and apparently very funny) time along the path just outside our room.  I went out to find D and he ushered me over to the chairs just below our deck, overlooking the ocean.  He pointed out where the bright stars became thinner, and the wide band of darkness along the horizon.  "Just wait... stare out there and wait," he said.  I stared, not really sure what I was looking for, then I saw a couple of rapid bright flashes.  Somewhere out over the ocean was a massive thunder storm... too far to hear the thunder, but the sky was clear enough to see the lightening from the cliffs.  We sat up watching the light show for a while before heading back up to the hut to crash for the night.