With no alarms and effectively shuttered windows, there are no immediate clues as to the time when you wake up – today it was after 9am when we roused ourselves to the sunshine and tropical birds.
We started our day with coffee in the room and a peruse of “Footprints” – the “daily paper” which outlines what activities are happening, when, and where. We picked out a few favourites to try – if we felt like it – and then shuffled off to breakfast at the Bayside.
The buffet was great as usual, and this morning I had an omelette made as I watched – all delicious.
This morning the special treat was a stop in at the Red Lane Spa where we both enjoyed a pedicure. “Be careful with him, he’s a virgin,” my wife warned the staff and indeed this is something I’d never tried before. But when at an all-inclusive… And it was quite enjoyable! While I didn’t get as far as a polish (Sharon has a beautiful fuscia / lavendar shade on her toes) the trim, buff and massage felt great. The staff was very friendly and chatted us up about Canada and reminded us how important our feet are. 🙂
The sun was quite bright and we thought we’s spend some more time on the beach, so we went to our rooms to apply sunscreen. Discovering that we were nearly out (we grabbed the last bottle from home) we went over to the resort store to get some more. Pro tip: bring enough sunscreen as it may cost you US$20 a bottle at the resort! That said, the store is well-stocked with necessities you may have forgotten, quaint souvenirs and novelties.
After the appropriate application, we were back to the beach to enjoy the sun.Here’s us until lunchtime:
Lunch at the Bayside was buffet-style again, with lots to choose from. Today I enjoyed some jerk chicken along with rice and peas and tried samples of other things, too. All good. The buffets also always have a killer dessert option available as well – today’s decadence was chocolate rum balls with almonds – very rich, very tasty!
The highlight of our afternoon was easily a snorkelling adventure that Sandals includes throughout the day. We found our boat and one other couple where we had taken our tour yesterday, and in fact it was the same Captain Big Poppa who took us for our adventure, with mate Paul. Poppa took us through the drill on being careful at the reef, our equipment, boat signals and what we would see, and then Paul was overboard to lead us. We strapped on our gear and followed.
Pro tip 2: If you ever visit the Caribbean you must go snorkelling at least once. The water is unbelievably clear, there are an incredible number of tropical fish at every turn (think National Geographic specials), the water is warm and it’s just a lot of fun! Paul signalled to us to follow him out and he led us to a huge underwater anchor (which he proceeded to swim through, like a boss) and cannon. Two popular stories have these relics as having originated with Captain Calico Jack’s pirate ship or (less romantically) dumped here in the ’60s by a treasure hunter fleeing “the po po” (altho I suppose they could still have originated from a pirate ship!).
From then we paddled around at our pleasure exploring the reef, marvelling at the strangely coloured (and shaped) fishes, sea urchins, coral shapes and vegetation. With almost no current to speak of it was easy just to float near the surface, relax and take it in as you float by. Eventually, though, Poppa sounded his boat’s horn and called us in. A light rain had just started as we made our way back to shore and we were treated to a spectacular rainbow over our resort.
The rain picked up and became our afternoon thunderstorm as we made our way back to our room to change, so we picked up some magazines and made our way to the lobby to watch nature’s show and relax with some rum drinks – today’s special was the Come Again, though I was able to persuade a very accommodating bar attendant to make a Hemmingway – nothing more dangerous than a tourist with access to the internet. We read for awhile and had a video chat with the kids (apparently Victoria storm 3 was less spectacular than our own thunderstorm), and keeping an eye on the time eventually made our way back to our room to dress for dinner.
Kimonos is one of two restaurants for which you need a reservation at Sandals Negril. Dress is more formal – collared shirts, dress pants, dress shoes for men, dress shoes or “elegant” sandals for women – and the atmosphere is more “fine dining.” Like many Japanese restaurants, the format here is to sit with other guests around a common cooking area while a wacky chef prepares your meal. And David did not disappoint – he sang and bantered and made rude shapes with the food, and all the while prepared a truly delicious meal.
Most of the four courses were sets of samplers: we had small portions of crab sushi and cream cheese sushi, fried chicken dumpling and a spring roll; next Shraon had a miso soup while I enjoyed a salmon salad; for the main course David performed fried rice with vegetables and chopped egg, teryaki chicken, beef with ginger, prawns and a white fish; and for dessert we moved to a new room with our table companions and enjoyed a tiny fruit smoothie, a kind of creme brule, ginger chocolate cake and cheese cake.
Following dinner we left the air conditioning and headed back to our room to change into our beach wear again before wandering the boardwalk to the piano bar. We played some pool and had a couple of drinks and eventually the reggae band showed up for the evening’s entertainment. The band played an interesting mix of reggae favourites and American popular songs modified with a reggae beat. They seemed well suited to the crowd they were playing to, which – although we enjoyed the show – was clearly targeting about 20 years younger.
Although it was pretty late when the show was finished, we were still pretty awake and so watched one of our film noir movies I had brought along for fun – tonight was The Third Man and was as convoluted and confusing as you would expect. Fun, but needs to be seen again to be followed (if possible).
And that exercise was enough to do us in for the night! Tomorrow looks like a rainy one so we haven’t made any firm plans – but hey, it’s Jamaica, mon – so no problem!
