April 12 - the last full day

Our last full day in Jamaica dawned with clear skies and calmer waters. The waves seemed to have buried much of the seaweed overnight, and though the water was not clear enough to find any fish, it was certainly free of 98% of the debris which had been obscuring our path the day before. Most of our crew woke early and met down on the deck... D and a couple of nieces got into a game of soccer on the beach while I ordered some calaloo, toast, and coffee for my breakfast.

One of my favorite birding accomplishments - a shot of one of the bananaquits gathering material for the nest.

D and King.  See the belt buckle?  When Kingsley found out we were coming back to Jamaica, he asked if we could find him a belt buckle that said "King", to replace his old one that he'd broken.  We found one, complete with bling (or "ice", as he called it) but D said King had to win it in dominoes.  King won his belt buckle on the first night, but it took until the end of the trip for him to find a matching belt to wear it to work.

I spent much of the morning in the water with G, who has grown by leaps and bounds in her confidence and enthusiasm for swimming and general water adventures. I floated around on an inflatable raft while she practiced turning forward and backward summersaults and trying to do handstands in the moving water.

SO happy in the water!

The view of our row of chairs and umbrellas, as seen from the water.

I also had another go at paddle boarding. I managed to once again get past the buoy line and paddle up and down the length of the beach without panic. I believe the current ban on jet skies helps my confidence tremendously, as I don't have to worry about drunk tourists ramming into me out on the open water. 

 My adventure quickly turned into a “MOM! The ball is floating away!” game of lose-the-beach-ball-and-mom-will-chase-it. After three retrieves, and nearly tipping over trying to grab the thing, I suggested that G and her new friends play with something that wasn't quite so easily lost at sea. At any rate, the water was becoming choppy and paddleboarding without a life vest felt like less of a good idea.

Once I felt good and waterlogged, and G had other people to swim with, I came into the chairs and settled in to read for a bit. Roughly around 11 or so, just as I was starting to feel like I needed a snack, the jerk pork vendor appeared on the beach. I jumped out of my chair and followed him to his resting spot in the shade and ordered up a pouch of jerk pork.

After more snacking and swimming, it felt like it was around lunch time. We determined we'd venture down the beach later for dinner, so we all decided to stay at Idle Awhile for lunch, and I ordered myself my favorite Jamaican Stirfry. At that point the weather started to turn, black clouds began to darken the skies, so we stayed under the cover of the deck and broke into a few card games. A family from the east coast had checked in the day before, and the guy who had stepped on the sea urchin the day before was sitting close by, so we invited him to join us in a game of cards. We started out playing “bullshit” (which G took great delight in being able to say, only within the context of the game) and eventually progressed to teaching our new friend how to play our family game, cribbage.

Turns out our friend, from Connecticut, is a fan of Tolkein.  This caught my attention, of course, and I disrupted the card game to engage in nerd talk.

As the rain came in waves, we all came and went from our rooms, slowly working on packing up or showering and cleaning up for dinner. We collectively decided to go to Kuyaba for dinner, which was always a good choice for D , G and I in the past. It was raining again when we were all ready for dinner, so we called for the shuttle to pick us up and take us down the road, rather than trek down in the rain. As it happened, Kuyaba had some live entertainment that night, and we were treated to an eclectic mix of covers from Johnny Cash to Kenny Rogers to the Beatles to Bobby McFarren. Of course, there was a brief inclusion of “One Love” in the middle of the set, but since there was a long-running joke that my brother-in-law resembles Kenny Rogers, we all forgave the repetitive Bob Marley once we heard the opening lyrics of “The Gambler” emanating from the speakers.

The drinks here come with umbrellas, which is awesome

"You've gotta know when to hold em... know when to fold em"

G quickly swiped my drink umbrella to use as a hair accessory

My dinner - grilled snapper in a coconut calalloo sauce

M, D, and G's not-so-subtle photobomb

After dinner we discovered that the hotel will shuttle you down to the restaurant, but although the menu and information on the hotel specifies “free shuttle service”, nobody explained to us that the shuttle was only free to the restaurant, and getting a ride back would require a taxi fee (not the person we called for the shuttle, not the driver who picked us up, not the staff who seated us. Nobody.) Seeing as how we felt this was a little too sly for our liking, we opted to call our regular driver Tyrone, to come pick us up. After dinner we gathered on our porch for some icecream and one last late-night card game. After a few rounds of bullshit and dessert, and a little more packing on my part, we all retired for the night.

Friday April 11 - more beach adventures

This morning dawned clear, and the water calmed... though yesterday's weather churned up a lot of seaweed and other coral reef inhabitants in the water. I sat on our porch and had a breakfast of toast with peanut butter and coffee again, as I updated my blog and worked on backing up my photos. After a bit of time, I wandered down to the bar with my computer and sat there, camera at the ready for birds, and going through my bird book to label the birds I'd shot thus far. One of the other guests, a lovely elderly woman, approached me and said “I couldn't help notice your book... I have the same book... where do you go birding when you visit?” We fell into a very enthusiastic discussion about birds, birding, and local bird names which I rarely have the opportunity to engage in. It totally made my morning.

This heron seems to be at the beach every morning, hunting lizards and crabs on the fringes of the beach just after dawn. I have enough photos of this critter to fill a book.

One of my conquests for the day... a young Jamaican Woodpecker exploring one of the big palm trees on the edge of the property.

Throughout the morning I watched as people walking the beach stopped to examine the line of seaweed washing ashore... several starfish were being forced up onto land, and one family took on the task of gathering them all up and swimming out to the buoy line to set them free in deeper water. Unfortunately, one of their family members ended up stepping on a sea urchin and embedding a few spines into the bottom of his foot. He was fine, after removing the spines, but I opted to stay out of the water for the day.

The life guard, Aaron, saw what I called the “icky stuff” in the water (that's the scientific term)... and set up a bean-bag toss game as an alternative form of beach entertainment. G and I jumped right to it, and gradually other people joined us in taking turns. It turned into a big competitive match, full of our ubiquitous family trash talk and loud celebrations of victory and defeat.

As my niece would say... (several times over)  "I got this!"

G has decided we need a version of this game in the back yard this summer.

Uncle D gets into the game too.

The life guard, Aaron, shows us how to play

We all take turns and eventually team up.  For the record, my niece B and I were the big winners - and by the end of the game I'm fairly certain everyone within 3 resorts heard our victory cheer.

Throughout the day, we all gathered either on the chairs at the beach, at the bean-bag game, or at the tables in the bar... either playing dominoes, cards, or reading books. It was a lovely and relaxing way to spend the hotter parts of the afternoon. Since our hotel planned on having a live band play that night, we decided to stay there for dinner. Gradually we all cleaned up on our own schedule, and eventually gathered at the big table in the restaurant to enjoy some great food and music. D made a trek down to the kitchen to talk to the chef about having some sort of “off the menu” dinner of the chef's choice. I ordered shrimp rundown, which was quickly becoming my favorite Jamaican dinner.

Me and my niece, C.  The drink in front of me is D's punch recipe... pineapple and orange juice, coconut rum, a dash of strawberry syrup (which sinks to the bottom) and a float of Myer's dark rum (which makes the color on the top)  

My dinner.  Shrimp rundown.  Yum.

My sister and D... and G's "photobomb" arm

We stayed for the entire set of music from the band. As much as I enjoy Bob Marley in general, it seems to be the general theme of every live performance to play “One Love” and “Three Little Birds”, and by about the second week of the trip we were all growing tired of hearing the same exact songs over and over again. This particular group did play their own original music (though they included the obligatory “One Love” in the show) but also played someUB40, to my great delight. I might have startled my nieces with my enthusiastic reaction when the band broke into “Red Red Wine” and I exclaimed “THIS IS MY JAM!!” After the show, my sister went and talked to the lead singer. She bought two of his CD's and then asked for permission from him to play the music in her classroom.   

After the band cleared up their gear, a few of our crew headed up to bed while the rest of us stayed around the bar to finish up our drinks and play a few games of dominoes with the staff.

You'll notice... I've managed to capture the sly smile of D and the eye-roll of M once again.

D and M ended up heading out for a late-night soccer game off the deck while I stayed around and played a few hands of dominoes with King before it was time for him to go home.  At that point, we all turned in for the night.

Thursday April 10 - photo journey

This morning dawned with rough waters... waves that seemed to mimic the PNW beaches. Some brave people ventured out into the water and attempted some bodysurfing. I stayed in up at the porch for breakfast, making coffee in the room and having a few slices of toast with peanut butter. G and I felt like getting off the beach for a bit, and she wanted to go swimming someplace with calmer waters. As it turned out, I ended up taking an impromptu photo tour from one end of Negril to the other.

During breakfast I jumped from the table to chase down this mocking bird doing the "wings out" display.

D thought that Rhodes Hall Plantation, just north of Negril, might be protected from the waves, so he and my niece took the scooter up there while G and I grabbed a shuttle. As we arrived, the manager in the office warned us that the waters might be too rough for snorkeling (basically saying, “snorkel if you can handle it, but otherwise we have lovely gardens to visit”) Their pool was also not functional, and I'm not sure if it was because of that, or because it was such a quiet day, but he only charged me a minimal day pass fee and didn't charge for G at all. I spent some time wandering the grounds, following some of the peacocks and spotting other birds in the immediate garden area, but the humidity was climbing as the day progressed.

Just off the beach at Rhode's Hall Plantation is this little rocky island, where a pelican decided to sit on an impossibly small branch to take a nap.

This bird is related to kingfishers... unfortunately my bird book is out of reach at the moment, but it is a king-something... I've spotted a few of these at the beach but finally managed a decent snapshot at the plantation

One of the resident peacocks finds a shady spot in the garden.

Some of the timber bamboo on the property... for scale, the building in the background is actually 1 story above the ground level of the bamboo.

 D and my niece had waded out onto the beach and found that it was all rock and seaweed, not good for G to snorkel. The groundskeeper let me know that another group was on their way to the property for a nature walk if I was interested, (he noticed me stalking all the birds) but I knew that midafternoon would be bad for birding anyway, and G really wanted to swim. We elected instead to take a drive to the other end of Negril, up on the cliffs, to Hide Awhile... the sister property of Idle Awhile.

As we arrived, we found out that all the guests of the hotel had checked out that morning, and there were no new guests checking in that day. As a result, we had the pool entirely to ourselves, and finally managed to find relief from the heat. Hide Awhile is located way up on the cliffs, further south from the town than I'd ever been. The water below the cliffs was rough, and after cooling off in the pool, I wandered down the path with my camera to take a few shots of the cliffs with my Lensbaby lens on the camera.

Playing with my optic80 lens here, I am actually a good distance above these cliffs, but the lens creates a fund optical illusion as if I'm right on top of the waves.

After a few drinks, and feeling sufficiently cooled down, we all dried off, gathered our stuff, and headed down the cliffs a bit to find lunch. We decided to stop at Xtabi again, since we knew it would be open, and I was particularly excited to get down into the caves with my big DSLR. I had the grilled snapper for lunch, which looked quite a lot like the steamed snapper from the night before, only with french fries.

I spotted a few frigatebirds hunting for fish right off the balcony of the restaurant.

This is a young frigatebird

This is an adult (probably male) hunting right off the cliffs.

This is a view of the "bat cave" under Xtabi... there is actually a bar built into the cave as well as bench seating.  It was closed today due to high tide, you can see the water rushing into the ground here.  I was both fascinated and terrified to be in the caves... when the tide came up in a large wave it would completely obscure the lights briefly.  Plus, the bats were still in there, hanging from the ceiling.

D took off on his scooter to head back to the hotel while G and I waited for our taxi. Back at the beach, we met back up with the rest of the family and met back up on the deck where we settled into games of dominoes and cards for a bit.

There is a vendor who sets up a booth on the beach every Thursday named Jimmy Beadz. As I browsed his stand, I saw a couple of ground doves land behind him and I immediately pointed to them and said “OH! Ground doves!” (out of habit). He lit up at my interest in Jamaican birds and we fell into a discussion about the behaviors of the birds on the island, the local names for the birds, and which ones I had spotted on my trip so far.

After some time playing games at the table, and shopping at Jimmy Beadz, we all eventually cleaned up and got ready for dinner. When the guys were out on their scooters they'd passed a place called the German Bar down on the water near Canoe... it was a restaurant entirely new to us all, so we decided to give it a go. It turns out that the name is not just about the cuisine, all the staff (and I presume the owners) are ex-pats from Germany, and offer up some authentic German cuisine. And also pizza. The place has a huge sign out front, but seems to only have the capacity for about 25 people at best. As it turns out, 2 other large groups had the same idea that we did for dinner, and the restaurant went from empty to at-capacity in about 5 minutes.

G and her eldest cousin... smiling for the camera.  Sort of.

I had a slightly difficult time discussing ingredients with the waitress, who didn't have a complete grasp on the English language. After discussing my allergies, and making it clear that I cannot eat anything with eggs, I ordered the pork loin with fries, and my dinner came out with a white sauce all over the meat (which had not been described in the menu as such) Here is my meal:

The conversation went like this:

Me: “Excuse me, what is in this sauce?”

Waitress “Pepper”

Me: “OK... but what else is in the sauce besides pepper?”

Waitress: “It is a secret!”

Everyone at our table: “SHE IS ALLERGIC TO EGGS!”

Me: “I am asking because I can't eat anything with eggs, nothing with mayo... I need to know the ingredients of the sauce.”

In the end, after a lot of back-and-forth and the waitress explaining that her grasp of English isn't that great, the owner showed me the box of secret sauce (pre-packaged cream sauce) and explained that they add pepper to it. (A whole lot of pepper... that stuff burned) It was very tasty, I really enjoyed it, and I was touched by how quickly so many people at our table jumped up to my defense.

After dinner, we all took a taxi back to Idle Awhile and a few of us gathered at the bar for a round of D's new rum punch and some dominoes.

This became a regular scene over the course of the vacation... D with his "I'm up to no good" smile, and M rolling her eyes at him.

B and I are having a great time!

Wednesday April 9th - a little more shopping and beach time

This morning I brought my camera down to the deck with me at breakfast and spent the morning split between eating my corn porridge with toast, and leaping up out of my seat to chase birds around the area.  For a bird watcher, it was a very productive morning.  Here is a sampling of some of the photos I captured...

Prarie Warbler

Bananaqut (locally called a beansquit) building a nest in the big tree off the deck

One of the many lizards

Northern Mockingbird - these birds stretch their wings when they perch, like cheerleaders trying to get a crowd of people to go from sitting to standing

Bananaquit

Northern Parula

Jamaican Woodpecker 

As our trip progresses, everyone around me seems to have fallen into the habit of getting my attention every time they spot a bird.

Here is a shot of the lush gardens on the property.

D had plans to go on a scooter adventure today, so my sister and I decided to walk down to the Waves market around mid-morning and check out some of the artist's booths.

Ready to Ride

Yeah... they're badass.

G walking down the Waves market.

I greatly prefer the Waves market over the craft market at the end of the beach... the concentration of booths at the big craft market makes the shop owners competitive, whereas the folks at the Waves are far less intrusive and more helpful than anything.  G did a good job shopping, she found a sculpture she liked, but waited and looked at all the booths before settling on anything to buy.  I found a new booth with artwork that I had never seen before.  This artist was painting woodcarvings, however rather than just using stain, he was painting using shades of sand from all over Jamaica.  The end effect made the carvings look as though they were partially made of stone.

I really loved the larger pieces hanging from the ceiling, especially the clocks, however they were all too large for me to buy without getting D's opinion.  I did find a fun palm tree with a parrot, which I thought would go well with my doctor bird carving.

This is the carving G picked out (she also bought some friendship bracelets for a few friends back home, which she tied to the sculpture so she wouldn't lose them)

Here are my two carvings... the one on the left has sand on the bird's beak and the ground part.  The doctor bird is from the large craft market from the other day.

After some successful shopping, we made it back to the hotel for lunch (Jamaican stir fry for me again) and then cooled down with a bit of swimming in the ocean.  The scooter folks arrived back at the hotel and told us about their adventures (including a guy on a motorcycle trying to sell them aloe while they were driving!) and then we all gradually cleaned up and voted on heading out to Xtabi for dinner.

Xtabi is a restaurant up on the cliffs which has a great view, and is built on top of some caves.  We sat outside, although the weather seemed to be sort of sprinkling, but not quite wanting to rain... we took our chances.  We only felt a few little sprinkles, but otherwise the weather seemed to clear out as we sat at the table. Their menu is pretty extensive... lots of local food (conch served in various ways) and several "fish of the day" options with 5 different ways to prepare the fish.  I chose steamed snapper:

My dinner came with rice and peas, veggies, and a small scoop of mashed potatoes.  The fish was a generous portion, I was barely able to finish my food.

After dinner, D took me down the stairs to check out the caves.  My niece kept calling them bat caves, which I thought was just a clever reference to Batman... however it was actually filled with bats.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel and settled into the bar with a drink and a few games of dominoes before turning in for the night.