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.