March 30 - snorkeling and fun

Our first full day at Tensing Pen dawned warm and humid. I woke around 7:00 and wandered out onto the patio to take peek at the activity in the gardens. Birds were busy hopping around in the trees, so I headed inside for my camera gear. Unfortunately I forgot about the condensation problem... I'd left my gear in our air-conditioned room all night, so as soon as I walked outside the lenses fogged over. I had to wait about 20 minutes for the zoom lens to fully warm up enough to shoot. I stepped down to the restaurant area for a cup of coffee while I waited, and then spent about an hour or so wandering the grounds seeking out wildlife. I found several birds and many lizards. I had a close encounter with a Doctor Bird, the national bird of Jamaica, however he zoomed past me and along down the path far too quickly for me to get a shot.

Stepping out the front doors of our house, this is the view... a round table on the patio just above the path, the cove and the bamboo bridge are directly in front of us.

A bald pigeon gathering sticks for a nest

I love how this lizard blends into the background

Our clan woke a few people at a time, wandering down to the restaurant for coffee and continental breakfast. After finishing a satisfying breakfast of toast, fruits (pineapple, papaya, and watermelon), yogurt and orange juice, we lingered at the table and chatted, waiting for our food to settle. Some of the kids headed for the pool to cool down. A few of us went over to the ocean side instead and geared up to snorkel for a bit.

I haven't been in the ocean in nearly 3 years, so my first dip in was a little tense for me. I did have a couple moments of panic when my snorkel plugged up and when a wave hit me on the side of the head... I had to spend a few minutes concentrating on slowing my breathing down, since I was too far from the ladder to just get out of the water.

My feet, the bridge, and the house we are renting (viewed from the water)

As the water wore us all down, our crew regrouped in the house to clean up and head out to find lunch. We'd read a lot of great reviews about a little restaurant down the street, so we took a walk down to Sips and Bites, just about a 15 minute walk down the road.

The food was excellent... I ordered the snapper, which was served in a browned gravy along with rice and peas, a slice of breadfruit, a piece of festival (fried bread), and some veggies on top. I was so hungry and busy visiting that I neglected to get a shot of the food. The cut of fish was interesting, it was a very boney piece of fish and took some delicate flaking to have bites without toothpick-sized bones.

After lunch we walked back to the room and immediately wanted to get into some kind of water to cool down. I spent a little bit of time in the pool, which gave instant relief to the heat, then gathered up my snorkel gear to head over and find some fish.

My second run of the day was far better than my first. I felt no panic, and I even managed to find some really interesting fish. I ended up swimming out much further than I ever have before due to being in pursuit of a decent photo of a little stingray I spotted skirting along the bottom.

This is the stingray I followed for a bit

Some of the colorful fish near the side of the cliffs

Can you spot the flounder in this picture?

The terrain in the cove

We had a late lunch, and felt all waterlogged, so the evening has consisted of mainly showering off the ocean salt and generally chatting and relaxing around the house. We ordered dinner in from the on-site restaurant, a couple of ackee pizzas and jerk chicken pizzas to share, as we visit and play games.

The yellow chunks on the front pizza are ackee, the pizza behind it and to the left is jerk chicken.

March 28-29... getting in and getting settled

The time leading up to are departure was the most frantic we'd experienced... and it was not helped by the fact that I had not reset my watch for Daylight Saving (because I hardly wear it) so I operated under the delusion that we had an extra hour of time up until about 5:00 p.m. But, with a great amount of team work and coordinated effort, we managed to be packed and sitting by the front door a full 5 minutes before the airport shuttle arrived. We hit a little traffic on the way to the airport, but arrived with plenty of time to check bags, print boarding passes, get through security, and have a leisurely dinner at Anthony's in the central hub of Seatac Airport.

The frantic day had in large part been due to the discovery that our flights had been changed without notification to us. Our flights over were pushed out by nearly an hour, but had not had the numbers changed. Our flights back, however, were completely different flights and had been pushed back by half a day. We spent the morning on the phone with the airline trying to understand what happened and why we weren't notified of the changes (they were apparently changed back in December) and trying to ensure that our reservations were indeed secure and we would not be stranded on the island at the end of our vacation. Throughout the day, D suddenly began receiving frequent updates via text and phone about the continually changing flight out of Seattle. All told, we were incrementally pushed out nearly two hours from our original departure time. This turned out to be a good thing, since we were able to push our airport shuttle out an hour and take the time to finish straightening up the house before we left.

Given the disruption of the sudden changes, and to spite the delays, the airline travel itself was incredibly smooth. I was able to sleep on the plane for a few hours, and the Seattle delays meant a shorter layover in Miami. The second flight was not full, so I had the unusual pleasure of sitting by myself and being able to choose between the aisle seat (for snack time) and the window seat (for the view)

Gayle in the Miami airport, catching some zzzz's

Looking back at the engine as we approach Montego Bay

Looking straight down from the plane, a large coral reef off the beach

The flight also landed early, and we ended up meeting up with my sister and two nieces the entrance to the immigration line. After winding our way through the ropes to the counters, down the corridor and through customs, we arrived in the hustle and bustle of baggage claim... half filled with weary travelers looking for their bags, and half filled with energetic taxi drivers looking for a customer. D had arranged for us to be driven by Errol, of Errol Flynn Tours, so he walked ahead of us to meet up with our driver.

Almost everyone who comes to stay in Negril will land in Montego Bay and be driven along the coastline to the beach, roughly a 90 minute drive (or so). This time, though, D had been researching some different restaurants and he heard about a great jerk place up in the hills, so he asked the driver to take us on the inland route to Negril so that we could stop there for lunch.

This is Border Jerk

The girls digging in

We ordered large portions of jerk chicken, jerk pork, and festival (a fried bread) which were brought out to our table in foil pouches along with a few bottles of sauces... jerk sauce, spicy ketchup, and a mixture of scotch bonnet peppers and vinegar. We dove in, enjoying it too quickly for me to get a picture of the food. Once we had reduced the piles of meat down to bone, we cleaned up and piled back in the van for the rest of the journey.

On our way down through the hills, Errol stopped in several places to get us samples of the local fruits. 

Our driver, Errol, jumped out of the van to pick up some fruits for us to sample

 We tried jackfruit, naseberry, and a custard apple. I will have to get photos of the jackfruit on this trip... it tastes something like a dried apricot that has been rehydrated in pineapple juice. The naseberry is a small, brown, round fruit with brown flesh and tiny black seeds... it tastes like a bosc pear that has been cooked in brown sugar. The custard apple was my favorite... it broke open similar to a sour sop, and also similar in appearance, with large black seeds and fleshy white interior. You scoop the fruit outo f the skin to eat it and it melts in your mouth, leaving you with a black seed to spit out. It tastes something like a peppery banana (peppery like allspice, not black pepper) with the texture of custard (hence the name). 

Half a custard apple.. it is better than it looks!

 We also picked up some super sweet tiny bananas, and something called an otaheite apple, which we haven't tried yet as we were warned to wash it before we eat it.

A short drive out of the hills and we were in Negril. We made a quick stop at the cambio to exchange money and pick up a few drinks and snacks at the Hi Lo grocery store, then headed over to our hotel right around check-in time. We had a little wait while they finished preparing the room, and G took the time to show her cousins around the property a little big. Once we made it to the room, bags were dropped and some of our crew headed straight out to the water. I had just taken my camera gear out of the bag when a thunder storm began to roll through... so I put it away and instead spent some time with the unpacking. The fatigue of travel crept through the room, and we took advantage of the down time to unpack a bit more or take naps. We were still waiting for the final 2 of our party to join us (their flights were changed around at the last minute as well) so we decided to just stay on the property and have dinner in the restaurant.

The food here is really excellent... I ordered the jerk shrimp which was amazingly spicy, I believe I drank 8 glasses of water just throughout dinner.

Tonight will be a relatively early turn-in for myself... I had about 3 hours of sleep on the plane last night and no nap during the day. Looking forward to our first full day tomorrow snorkeling on the cliffs.

Landed safe

After the most frantic pre-trip scrambling experience we've ever had, the airplane travel was relatively smooth and we landed safely in Jamaica. I will have a full post with photos soon... just wanted to get this out there now that I've gotten past Blogger's "you seem to be in a different country" verification process and managed to log in.

Gearing up to head out

After more than five months of planning, plotting, researching and dreaming... we have suddenly found ourselves in the final days of counting down to our next great adventure.  There is always a lot of chaos in the last few days before travel - lots of last minute errands and sudden unforeseen roadblocks - but I think that we managed to mitigate a lot of it this time.  We set ourselves some deadlines for online purchases, allowing for shipping time so that we would not need to wait for last minute deliveries.  We pulled out the suitcases weeks ago and started organizing our trip supplies, going through things like sunblock and medications and checking to see what was good and what needed to be replaced.  I've stayed on top of laundry to ease our way into packing (and ensure we will arrive home to at least *some* clean clothing).

We have not taken a real vacation in about three years.  I am not only excited about this trip just for the trip itself, but also because we will be traveling with a good portion of my family from out-of-state, whom I see not more than about once a year, and only for a day or so at a time (my eldest sister, her husband, and three of her daughters)  We are traveling with a group of 8 on this vacation, which means that while we will visit some of the same excursions D, G, and I have seen in the past... this time some of the trips will be more along the lines of a private tour.  The boat ride up the Black River will be in a smaller boat with just our group, rather than the large pontoon we rode on back in 2010, and captained by a conservationist who might possibly be as enthralled with birds as I am. We will also be seeking out new adventures which weren't around on our last trip 3 years ago, spending time up in the mountains on a farm where we can explore the grounds where our food is grown before heading to the kitchen to witness the cooking techniques.  We have a few days with excursions planned, but most of the vacation will be simply relaxing, enjoying the company, and taking local adventures as they present themselves (perhaps a yoga class on the cliffs, or some paddle boarding out in the ocean off the beach)

I am looking forward with great anticipation to the photographic opportunities before me.  I feel that I have a firm grasp on the mechanics of my equipment, far more than I did in the past, and I have been taking some time to study new techniques to employ on this trip... (not only just the basics - like remembering to bring my polarizing filters - but funky techniques like HDR)  I have concentrated on my gear more than I've concentrated on my clothing for this trip - the bathing suits were folded up and ready a couple weeks ago... whereas my gear is still sitting out waiting for inspection as I debate between the weight of a fast lens vs. the portability of a smaller one.  I have always taken too much stuff in the past, with that little "just in case" voice in the back of my mind, so scaling back is my challenge.

That is where I stand tonight... multitasking between updating software on the travel notebook computer and making the hard cuts on my gear.  (or finding a way to make it all fit with creative packing)