Jamaica Paradise

As a treat to ourselves, or rather, as a retreat from the everyday surroundings of home and country, we took a "honeymoon" trip to Jamaica shortly after Tim returned from deployment. We spent a week at an all-inclusive hotel in Negril, a place known for it's peaceful and delightful beaches. We thoroughly enjoyed our time there and felt as though we spent a week in paradise. The weather was perfect -not too hot, not too cold, a bit rainy some afternoons, lovely in the mornings, and mostly sunny at the "just right" temperature. The water in the bay was just as complimentary as the weather -not too cold, just cool enough to be the refreshing interruption to our beach sunbathing. The natural life was just what you would expect of paradise -tall palm trees, short ferns, tropical flowers of all shapes and colors, birds singing in the trees, crickets chirping at night, crabs scampering across your path, lizards zipping here and there, and breathtaking sunsets that arrayed the evening in glory.

We decided to make the goal of our trip: refreshment. So we didn't max out the schedule, we simply did what we wanted to do and took one day at a time. We spent a lot of time relaxing on the beach or in the water, enjoying the delicious food that was made for us (and some mornings delivered to our room!), and catching up on lost sleep. One day we took kayaks out into the bay, rowing ourselves around the shore to see the neighboring sights. Another day we went snorkeling and took a ride in a glass-bottom boat. Tim thoroughly enjoyed the snorkeling, but I was scarred the entire time, though I tried to enjoy it too. When I stuck my head in the water and saw schools of fish swimming toward me, I would feel my heart starting to race, and had to remind myself, "They are just little fish and they aren't going to hurt you." (Seriously, I frequent the dog park where the animals are much bigger and have much more potential of injuring me, but for some reason, I was scarred of the little fish in the sea.) After our day snorkeling excursion, we decide that night snorkeling was out. We took a Catamaran cruise one afternoon that took us along part of the 7-mile beach. We stopped at a few rock caves, and got to go exploring for a little while. We tried to go sailing on a Hobie-Cat, but there wasn't any wind, so we couldn't go anywhere.

We spent a week in Jamaica and didn't want to come home when the week was over! If you want a great vacation sometime, we recommend visiting Jamaica.