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!