D woke me up early this morning at my request. Last year I missed the morning light photo opportunities while we were here, so I wanted to get up extra early at least one morning to take advantage of the yellow glow of the sunrise. Around 6 a.m. the sky was beginning to lighten, and D touched my shoulder and said "pictures?"
I rose out of bed slowly, threw on some shorts and a shirt, and headed out into the quiet morning. From what I could tell I was one of the first guests up (which is entirely unheard of, seeing as how I'm not a morning person unless fishing is involved) The light was not quite right yet... though the sky was lightening the sun was not yet hitting the subjects I wanted to photograph. I picked up a cup of coffee in the restaurant and meandered the property, looking for interesting things while I waited for the sun to rise more.
The rocks along the cliffs are interesting... it looks as though lava came down, engulfing sea creatures along it's path, and as it cooled it formed around the shapes of those sea creatures. Everywhere along the jagged cliff surface you can find shapes of shells and coral. There are many hidden on the natural floor of the cliffs, and they are also worked into the stonework of the walls and pathways.
I wandered from one end of the property to the other, discovering another hidden path down to the water's edge.
After the photography adventures I met back at the hut with D and G, who were getting ready to go to the main house for breakfast.
There is a continental breakfast included at this resort, with additional offerings if you want anything more. The continental breakfast includes toast with a variety of jams and jellys, a couple of cold cereals, fresh juice (orange and pineapple) and several fruits to choose from. Oh and coffee... the restaurant always has fresh coffee in the corner for anyone to have all day long.
The sandwich bread here is soft, large, and sliced about twice as thick as the bread back home, and has the consistency of a slightly denser Wonder bread. In our last trip I had not noticed wheat bread being offered anywhere, so I've made a mental note to look for it in the stores.
For their fruit this morning, they had a platter of watermelon, sliced pineapple, and fresh guava. Both the watermelon and pineapple were smaller than what we have in the states, and much, much sweeter. The pineapple is also not quite as yellow. Fresh guava I'm not as much of a fan of. It's soft and mild, and is good when combined with other fruits, but it's not one that I prefer to eat on it's own. Guava jelly, on the other hand, is AMAZING.
We're going to have to buy a case of it before we go.
After breakfast we headed back to the room to let our food settle, and lather up on
sunscreen before heading out to the water. That is where my big adventure began.
We gathered up our snorkel gear, walked down stairs, and took an immediate right, which put
is directly in front of the plank bridge across the inlet. I approached the bridge with the
intention of crossing right over it, but my right foot hit the bridge and I hesitated...
and backed up. With D and G safely across on the other side, they turned and started
yelling to encourage me... come on! You can cross the bridge! After one or two attempts
to get my foot all the way on the wood, I finally sucked it up and crossed.
It's ironic that I take baby steps at first - not quite like Gordy crossing the train
trestle in "Stand By Me" - I did stay up on my feet - but logically on would think I'd take
longer steps to get across faster. I just don't trust my balance - I'm so damned clumsy
(which we'll talk about later) and I have the added fun of wearing bifocals, which makes
distances below my feet look warped. But I did make it, safe and sound and after much
fanfare.
As we made our way down the stairs to the main lower platform and ladder, D suggested I
start the morning by just jumping in from the platform. No vest, no goggles, just jump in
and get it over with. I climbed up to the platform and looked over, and then thought,
"It's not so different from the bow of the boat" and after a few deep breaths I ran and
jumped... closing my eyes tight once I left the platform.
I remember that the salt content of the water here is much higher than anything else I've
experienced, which means we are far more buoyant than we are in, say, a lake. But I forgot
how salty that water would taste. I came up coughing and sputtering, and D threw one of
the blue floaty mats down to me to grab and kick myself back to the ladder.
After that we decided to get in the water and snorkel a bit, so I put on my gear, along
with my vest, and popped back into the water via the ladder. Unfortunately the water was a
bit murky this morning - apparently the seas were somewhat rough just before we flew into
town, and it stirred up some sediment. I did panic a little, when I tried to sit upright
and a small wave hit my head from the side... I calmed myself down but not before I exhaled
so hard that my mask fogged over completely. By this time D had lowered G to me in the
water, and she was clinging to my arm as I swam around. She had her own mini-panic when
one of her flippers started to come off, but I calmed her down, reminding her that if
anything fell, D could swim down and pick it up (he did so several times last year when a
woman kept dropping her sunglasses off her raft) D joined us in the water, and I handed G
over to him so I could concentrate on keeping myself calm.
All in all, I'm amazed that she got into the water with us. She's still so fresh from her
swimming lessons at the gym, and the deep ocean is SO MUCH DIFFERENT than a 4 foot pool,
but although she was nervous at the movement of water, she loved seeing the fish "for real"
- pointing to them and holding Daddy's arm so she could fly in the water "like superman".
After clearing my mask I got my face back in the water and swam around a little, and felt
something brush up against my thigh... then something against my arm, and as I looked
closely I saw that there were little tiny jellyfish in the water. They were no larger than
maybe a sand dollar, but that was all I needed to head back to the ladder and get the fuck
out of the water. I tried to signal D to come back in, but he didn't understand my waving,
so I had to fully get out of the water and flag him down to bring him in. He didn't see
them himself because his mask was foggy, but at that point G had gotten a bit tired of
swimming anyway, so he brought her in.
If I did get stung, it was so minor that it never developed into a rash... one of the other
resort guests showed me her thigh where she had been hit the day before. Apparently
jellyfish are not normally an issue, but the recent rough water had stirred them up from
the bottom along with the sediment. Even the sting she had didn't seem to bother her too
much the next day, but as the water was too murky for photos I wasn't inclined to get back
into it for a lengthy swim anyway.
But there was still my goal of jumping to look at. D started talking about it immediately.
He knows me well, he knows that if I put something off I'm more likely to keep putting it
off, and since I'd already jumped from the lower platform, I needed to keep the momentum
going and jump from the bridge. He pulled out the camera and said he needed to practice
timing for shooting, so I jumped from the lower platform a couple times. After my very
first jump, D had thrown a blue floaty down to me... but for this next one I came up and he
waited, and then asked me if I really needed it. I sat in the water a second, floating
easily with my head and neck above the water, and decided it wasn't necessary, and doggy-
paddled my way back to the ladder. After those jumps, he started talking to me about the
bridge.
So my original goal had been the bridge. As I explained in the photo post, I walked up the
steps to the bridge and surveyed the distance. D had suggested I use the platform instead,
even though it's higher... it's not a great distance higher and the solid ground is easier
to jump from (in his opinion) I kind of thought my hatred of that bridge would make it
easy to jump from, but as I stood there picturing the jump, I came to realize that if I
walked to the center and turned, there's no way my feet would leave that bridge. I was
convinced I'd hit the back of my head on it on my way off, and convinced I couldn't launch
myself without a running start, and if I ran across the bridge and then jumped, there'd be
no controlling what angle I'd end up taking, and there were very large rocks and a cliff
wall to consider. (Not that I thought I'd make it all the way to the cliff wall, but,
that's the direction the water moves, and if I took too long to clear my face and open my
eyes, I thought I'd be kissing that wall) The platform, though higher, offered me a
greater landing zone, and a running start.
I knelt on the cliff and looked over, to make sure I was over the plaform part and not the
solid wall part. I stood up and stepped back, then stepped forward, then stepped back,
then practiced a few times of walking forward to see where my feet might land, trying to
get the timing right so I could push off with my right leg. D stood on the lower level
yelling encouraging things to me, which are all a blur from the overwhelming fear I was
feeling at the time. He would try to count down and I'd shake my head... "Let me do this".
I stepped back and thought "it's just like the lower platform, it's just like the bow of
the boat" and then I heard Jen's voice in my head saying "FUCKING JUMP! JUST GO ALREADY!"
I gave D a thumbs up, and ran.
I kept my eyes open the whole time, until just before I hit the water. It was.. surreal to
say the least. Ever have those nightmares where you fall off a cliff and then wake up just
before impact? That's pretty much exactly what it looks like. I watched my feet, so I
could see when I needed to push off. I saw the stone pattern moving rapidly below me, I
saw my foot hit the edge of the cliff, and then I saw blue green water... there was a
particular spot of water that was emerald green, slightly diamond shaped but elongated to
the right and left, a small swirl of white bubbles in the upper corner. I watched as the
diamond grew in size, as my feet dropped closer to the surface, I could hear the wind in my
ears drowning out distant voices, and then I closed my eyes and hit the water. There was a
great splash, and then only the low rumble of water pressing in on my head. It sounded low
and deep, and then gradually higher and higher, and then I heard bubbles, and then I
surfaced. I cleared my face and opened my eyes and saw D on the platform... with this look
of anticipation on his face. I could tell he was ready to dive in and save me if I had any
hint of panic, so coughing and sputtering, I held up my hand in a thumbs up sign. He
relaxed a little, then asked if I needed anything, could I swim back to the ladder. I
coughed a bit more and said "I'm good" and paddled myself back.
It was exhilerating and frightening and fucking amazing all at once. I'm proud that and
excited that I did it, but the thought still turns my stomach. I thought if I could do the
jump a second time that we'd do a video... but there's an unfortunate side effect of that
original jump for me. My sinuses are pretty sensitive anyway, and didn't handle the ups
and downs of the flights the previous day... and when I hit the water it felt like someone
had stabbed my inner ears on impact. The good news is I don't even know how I landed -
feet first? Ass first? Nothing stung from the impact at all, because all I thought was
how badly my head was hurting. It will be fine - this happens to me all the time - but it
is stopping me from doing any sort of big jumps again. Even later in the day when I jumped
from the smaller platform, my ear gave me a twinge of pain bad enough to tell me that any
jumping is out for right now.
But I did it, and I got the picture, and that sucker is getting blown up and framed and put
on my wall. I'm not kidding.
As I sat on the stone bench recovering from the incredible heart rate I'd managed to
create, we introduced ourselves to a very nice couple from New York. They started jumping
from various heights, and D took pictures of them and we talked in between jumps. After a
while of sitting in the sun and conversing, we headed our separate ways to clean up and get
some lunch.
D, G and I ate lunch at Alice's across the street again. I was going to order shrimp, but
they were running low on supplies and the waitress offered a "seafood special" that the
chef could whip up, a combination of a few things that would include shrimp. I asked how
it would be cooked, and she said "Don't worry about it, he will cook it up right for ya" so
I shrugged and said "Alright!" Yeah, NOT like me at all, but I figure if it turned out
really bad, I could just grab something back at our place. As we sat waiting for the food
we watched people walking by, and I noticed a tall older man, kind of looked like a
southern rocker with his long gray hair, walking by carrying a lot of snorkel gear- a few
pairs of fins, some snorkels and some masks. One of his snorkels dropped in the road and
he kept walking, not noticing. I popped up from the table and picked it up and followed
him. I tried to get his attention, but he was talking to someone else and passing a
crowded stand and didn't hear me... so I picked up the pace of my walking.
Which was a mistake. The side of the road here has a deep v-shaped trench for when it
rains. But it hasn't rained in a while, and that v-shape gutter is dry and dusty, and my
foot hit it at just the wrong angle, slid out from underneath me, and I went down.
I'm so FUCKING clumsy.
I was so close to the full stand of people who were sitting there eating that one of them
actually reached out and almost caught me, but he was a little too late. He reached down
and helped me up, and I looked at my leg... it looked a little scratched at first so I
insisted to the now large group of people fussing over me that I was entirely fine.
Embarrassed to say the least, but really... just trying to return this guys snorkel.
Hey, turns out the guy is from the south! As I approached him I told him that he'd dropped
his snorkel in the road, and I unfortunately slipped on my way to return it so now it was
entirely covered in dust, but he was so thankful for me to have gotten up from my table and
race after him... he thanked me profusely. Then he fussed over my leg as well and I waved
it off. Really, I'm clumsy, it's not the first time I've bruised myself. It's not a
problem at all. The men at the stand smiled as I walked by, and one of them put out his
hand to shake mine... "Ya mon! That was a nice ting you did thar baby! So nice!"
I didn't look at my knee again until I got back to the table, where I announced to D that
he had a very dorky wife, and I needed to go back to the room to clean off the blood from
my knee. I had turned a corner before I biffed it, so D was completely unaware that I had
fallen. I headed back to the room - where we had an ample supply of bandaids and
andtibacterial wipes, and cleaned up. What I thought was a small scratch, turns out was a
small chunk I'd taken out of my knee - maybe the size of a small pebble. Not bad, really,
but it certainly liked to bleed a lot.
Heh... people think I carry so much first aid stuff with me because I'm a mom. Nope, it's
for me. I'm a klutz. But I'm usually only bad when I'm in front of a large crowd, which
doesn't happen all too often, so it's all good.
My lunch turned out to be a curried seafood special - a few shrimp, mixed with vegetables,
conch, and chunks of snapper. Although I wouldn't normally order conch on purpose, it was
surprisingly tasty mixed with everything else, and the curry was nice and hot the way I
love it.
I also tried festival for the first time. Festival is a fried bread which is a nice side
to having spicy things like curry and jerk. I didn't have it in the last trip because we
could never verify the ingredients well enough, but the waitress here confirmed that it
only has milk in it, no egg, so I decided to give it a shot.
After lunch I wandered around the property some more taking pictures. This is what I look
like a lot of the time on most of our vacations:
The resort is named Tensing Pen after the original owner's dog, Tensing. There are a pair
of these dogs who still live here, the boy is named Tensing and the girl is Sugar. Every
so often you can find them wandering the property or curled up on a platform sleeping.
G loves petting these dogs and talking to them, and they patiently love the attention.
There are also a number of resident birds - who are quite camera shy - and a massive amount
of lizards.
I think my favorite part of walking through the garden paths quietly is listening for
leaves moving - it means there is a bird or lizard near by... then I stop and stare at the
branch movement, camera ready, waiting for the critter to show themselves. At night the
sound of lizards zipping around is amplified, and tends to make me jump as they skitter
around in the dark.
We spent some time relaxing in the room after lunch. I've taught G how to play Uno, and
she's picking up a good sense of strategy as we play. After our down time we headed out to
the front area to hang out and wait for our ride to dinner.
We had dinner at the Rock House, which is on the cliffs a bit further north of our resort.
It's one of the larger restaurants around, and is a bit more expensive than the smaller
family owned places, but has excellent food and great service. I had grilled lobster for
my dish, which came with a fried plantain, some mixed vegetables, and rice and peas.
What they call "rice and peas" is what we call rice and beans - kidney beans specifically.
It's a side dish served with just about every lunch or dinner meal, and I really enjoy it.
The lobsters here are spiny lobsters, which do not have the big claws we see on Maine
lobsters in the states... but has a great tail that has a sweeter, kind of nuttier flavor
that is just amazing. My lobster was split in half, simply grilled, with a bit of garlic and some drawn butter on the side.
After dinner we caught a cab back to the resort and wandered our way to the bar, where we played some dominoes with the bartender and had a few drinks (G's being a fruit punch
blend) As the hour grew later, we headed back to the room and settled in for sleep.
1 comment:
Ok, now I'm hungry. ;)
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