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.
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