So we were finally heading down south for some warmer weather, whoo whooo!! You just know that it’s going to be a good vacation when they’re de-icing the planes in the airport that your trying to leave and the weather that you’re heading to is between 80 and 90 degrees. Am I right? Now sitting on the plane watching them take the ice off the wings can be a little nerve wracking, but for me? Well I’m OK with it! 
Good Bye cold weather!
Like I said, as long as were heading to someplace that you wear shorts and swim suits, they can pretty much do whatever to get us there.
We had a short layover in the airport on our first stop and we were kinda hungry because of the schedule that we had in the morning. So when we saw a Retirement Party – and with cake, well I must admit I did kind of walk by to see what was going on and take a gander at the cake. It turned out that they were celebrating the retirement of the 767 plane and now it was heading to the desert to be abandoned.
I felt kind of bad for it, but when I was offered some cake, I didn’t feel that bad anymore. The sugar fix was just the right ticket! 
The plane ride to Jamaica was pretty much uneventful (which is good!) and it didn’t take long and we were changing into summer clothes at our final destination – Jamaica. Since we booked our trip on line, we all weren’t just sure what we needed to do to get from the airport to our hotel, but the people at the airport were nice and we were hoping that we’d fine the correct bus to get us to our hotel.
We were on the right one and once in the lobby – it was warm and it felt good. Yea, really good!
It was funny because our group usually either wears something from Iowa or carry’s Iowa mugs, and just as we were checking in we met up with others from Iowa also just checking in. And throughout the course of the week, we all became pretty good friends.
Our rooms were really nice and clean, and of course came with a welcome towel design on our bed to let us know who our housekeeper was for the week. For me to it’s a true sign that we’re really on vacation. 
Now I’m not saying that I don’t fix our bed at home – but I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen any fancy towel designs on any of our beds!
After unpacking we needed to get a lay of the land and to see what fun excursions were available. We signed up for a couple and we all were hoping that we picked the ‘good ones’.
Daryl checking out the hotel from the balcony
First one was going to be on a Party Catamaran where we were going to do some snorkeling, Dunn’s River Falls, and then lunch and hang out in the Caribbean Sea for awhile. First things first. We knew that it didn’t make sense to risk getting our good cameras wet so we checked out the cameras that you could buy. OK, now we all decided that the $5 disposable camera that was selling for $27 just wasn’t worth it. I mean seriously, $27?? So we decided that we’ll just buy a picture from the local guys that they took if we got a chance. We had to take a bus from our hotel to the boat and it was literally a 15 minute ride. We laughed when we saw this little building and was sure hoping that we wouldn’t need the fire station to help us today. It looked pretty small. It’s the building on the right (red one)
This has got to be the smallest fire station around!
Here’s a picture of the boat that we spent the day on and other picture of the bay where the boats are all held. Check out how clear the water is even here.
Our boat for the day
The bay where the boats were kept. See how clear the water is!
We got to the spot that we were going to snorkel and into the water we go. Now it’s not like we’re expert snorkelers or anything – but I’m telling you that I’ve never seen such a perfect spot ever to check out the underwater wildlife! Usually when we’ve snorkeled in the past you’d see one or maybe two cool fishes, but this time there were tons of all different types of fish just swimming around by you. It literally was like you were in someones aquarium or something. My brother had a couple of fish so close to him that he was trying to catch them. So cool! Too bad I didn’t have that $17 camera with me to take that picture 🙁 We were swimming by a reef and it was so alive with color and different types of coral. I read reviews that said it was the best that you’ll find for not only the water but also the fish and scenery and I’m thinking that review was spot on! I tried to dive under deeper to get a better look, but after getting a couple of mouthfuls of water, I decided that maybe I didn’t need to get any closer after all. 
After snorkeling we were off to Dunn’s River Falls. Now this falls is spring fed and is about 180 feet high and 600 feet long. And rocks.. lots of rocks and water! It’s one of the very few waterfalls in the world that empties into the sea. When you stand on the bottom of the falls and look up – well it doesn’t look possible that you would be able to climb them. Everyone tells you that you need water shoes to do it, but I’m thinking that I’ll need spiked boots or something! But with a lot of hand holding (literally) you do eventually make it up the falls. I found a picture off the web that gives a better visual of what we climbed. It’s just a picture of a small part of the climb.
Just part of the falls that we climbed
Thank goodness the guides every morning brush the rocks so there isn’t anything on them to start the day out that will make the climb too slippery. They tell you to hold hands and at first I thought this holding hand thing was… well kinda dumb. Yea, that thought was short lived! Poor Daryl’s hand! I think I cut off his circulation a couple of times.
After the falls, we got back on the boat, cranked up the music, found some food, and headed out to the waters for a good time and some good food. Even though the weather was overcast today, we all sure had a good time!
When we were getting ready to go out for the night, I quick checked the internet on how cold it actually was there. Yea, too cold! 
At the end of the night we had a good meal and headed down to the nightly entertainment. Tonight’s show was a tribute to Michael Jackson.
What a couple of busy days we’ve had – I wonder what adventures we’ll have tomorrow?