Saturday (12/10)
5:30 pm - we have arrived and are in our room waiting on our luggage. Oops, there's the bell hop at the door with our bags.
- buffet outside and a couple of drinks before we decide to turn in for the evening. It has been a long day traveling and we are wiped out. After heading to bed, Emily decides she needs a snack in bed, so I hit the grill for some Jamacian Jerk chicken, French fries, and snagged a couple of cold beverages from the bar.
Sunday (12/11)
In the morning we had breakfast at the buffet, then hit the beach for some fun in the sun. The water is warm and clear, and the weather is spectacular at better than 80 degrees. After lunch, we setup set appointments for snorkeling and a cruise at the watersports stand. The water sports stand also has sail boats, water skiing, windsurfing, etc. Everyone here is very nice and truly fun (laughing and singing all the time). These people really like their music. We chose to attend the buffet dinner again. Each night there was some type of fresh seafood, and I had several different types of snapper throughout the trip.
Monday (12/12)
Today’s big event was snorkeling at 1:30pm which consisted of a long narrow shaped banana boat with dual 40hp outboard motors taking on a ride about 15 minutes in length to a coral reef and tying up to an anchor. The water was a little rough, but Emily and I took a lot of underwater photos using an underwater disposable camera that we purchased at gift shop for $17.50 US. Note to self: bring underwater camera next time. J When we got back on board, some folks mentioned seeing an boat anchor, cannon, and stingrays which we did not see. So, we will need to schedule another trip to find these artifacts. Also, the sea was pretty rough this afternoon, so next time, we will try to catch the morning snorkeling trip. Looking back on the trip, the morning is typically good for snorkeling and waterskiing; leave the afternoon for sailing, wind surfing, and drinking on the beach.
This evening, we also discovered the ping pong table. We found out that we are pretty evenly matched at ping pong, and this lead to a week long battle at the ping pong table. Our favorite ping pong table was the one in the shade by the pool.
After returning to our room, we were surprise to find a bottle of champagne that is probably because we marked this trip as our honeymoon.
Tuesday
Catamaran cruise loaded at 2:45pm for a trip to “
Wednesday
We showed up for a lesson on sailing at 9:30am, but there was no wind. So, we signed up for snorkeling the next morning at 9:30am. At 1:30pm, we returned for the sailing lesson. After a quick review of how to control the boat, the instructore drew a digram in the sand to show how you can return depending on the wind. Basically, you can not sail directly with or against the wind, and must zigzag to get to your destination. Then, it was time to give a try. The instructor set the “man” a sail to show his lady that he was sea worthy. After a slow start, I got the hang of it pretty quick.
- always turn into the wind, when the sail comes toward you, switch to the other side.
- Tighten the sail to increase speed, loosen the sail to decrease speed.
- Sailing slightly angled into the wind, makes returning easier.
We really enjoyed the sailing. The water is so clear, you can see all of the rocks on the bottom. After our first short sail, we said this is something we are going to do again.
Thursday
We had breakfast in bed this morning, and at 9:15am pushed off for another snorkeling trip. After our first experience, we had plans and did find our targets cannon, large anchor, and several small sting ray. In addition, we found two unwanted surprises in jelly fish. They were about 4 feet below the surface, almost transparent, and very difficult to see. We emerged unscathed and satisfied with our 2nd snorkeling trip. Unfortunately, there were no pictures left on the underwater camera, so we don’t have any pictures.
Dinner was at a special restaurant on the resort where we had to make reservations several days in advance. The dinner and service was fantastic. Rick had too much red, red wine. After dinner, we attended the bon fire on the beach where they had a singer perform, and beach chairs surrounding the fire. This was a fantastic time, but Rick was not feeling 100%, staggering, and wife helped him to bed.
Friday
The last full day in paradise. This started on the beach, sitting in the shade, and reading our books. It is at this point, that I realized that my MSDN magazine had an advertisement for www.pluralsight.com training that I am scheduled to attend, and the dates differed from my reservations. A quick trip to the pc lab in the lobby to email pluralsight to verify the dates. A quick response and everything is good.
Emily and I sailed this morning for a long time, making several trips around the bay. Later in the day, we had our first rain of the trip. Not significant, but enough to kill the wind for the day. In fact, there were several sail boats (from another resort) that had to be “rescued” late in the day. If I where those people, I would have been pissed that they left you out there all day.
After lunch and some liquid courage, I decide to show the visitors how to waterski. With a little rain and no wind, I snapped on the slalom ski and took my turn at carving some turns in salt water. I am a bit rusty, and seriously out of shape. The wife has a bum hamstring and decided not to take a turn. It was a little unsettling while skiing and seeing the large rocks under you, not knowing how deep they are. If I bite it, am I going to smash my head on the rocks? The ski boat was a little disappointing out of the whole with what seemed less than adequate power, but once on top of the water, it had plenty of power.
Em and I also tried bocche ball on the beach. The wife beat me at the game she seemed to make-up.
For dinner, we had grilled lobster tail. Wow, what a treat!!!
Saturday
- 6:30 am wake up call
- 7:15 am heading to breakfast. We just set our luggage outside our room, and the bell hop picked it up and delivered it to the lobby.
- 8:00 am breakfast is over and we are sitting in the lobby waiting for the bus to load.
- 8:20 am bus ride starts from Couples Negril to
- 9:30 am bus arrives at Montegoy bay. I did not count, but I bet the bus driver beeped the horn on the bus at last 100 times during the trip targeting other passing buses, pedestrians, and other cars.
- 10:00 am – Our bags are checked into the airline without having attendants dig through our bags. For some reason, they let us pass without any trouble. Contrary to our experience with getting through immigration on the way in, there was no line, and it took about 2 minutes to get through immigration.
- 10:05 am – We are sitting in the bar at the airport writing notes on our trip.
