These next couple of days of our vacation was just as fun as the first couple of days or maybe even better. Remember the group of people from Iowa that we met as we were checking into the hotel? Well we ran into them quite a bit as the week went on and found out that we had a lot in common. We even got invited to a weekend party that they have every year and I’m thinking that it’ll be a whoot! It’s planned for July and I sure hope that it will work in our schedule.
So the beginning of the week we spent time on the beach and pool. We also went snorkeling, Dunn’s River Falls, and a party catamaran out on the ocean. Our hotel package also included water sports so we all went out on paddle boats to see what we can see. Daryl doesn’t really like the water as much as I do, so I was glad that he was ready to go out into the ocean on a very small boat. They said the ‘rules’ were not to go into the swimming area (duh!) and also don’t get too close to the reef. Now this one I can believe. We wanted to get a picture of the hotel and with it being so big (around 850 rooms) it was a feat in itself! So what better way than to take it from the ocean right? Yea, well I had the bag that held our cameras and when we were just getting into the paddle boat we had what seemed to be a big wave hit us and I panicked. I’m kinda weird about cameras getting wet and I for sure didn’t want to get other people’s cameras wet that I had also in the bag. So I gave them to the guide on the beach. Now if I knew that it would take us 3 days to get back on the paddle boats because of rough water – well I would have re-thought that whole idea of giving away the bag. But once we were out in the water it was much calmer and so bizarre! We were a long way from the beach and you could literally see the bottom of the ocean floor! I was talking to someone else who visited Jamaica and she said that she asked the guide how deep was the water because they could also see the bottom and they were told around 30 feet. Now isn’t that just crazy? But like I said I didn’t take our camera out and later in the week we’ll have to try it again to see about getting a hotel picture.
I’ve also been working on trying to catch a good sunrise on the beach. Now even though I do kind of like this picture below, it’s still not what I was hoping to capture. I’ve gotten up the last couple of mornings early to try to snap a picture and the only thing that I’ve accomplished is that I think that the old man picking up coconuts off the beach is thinking that I’m hitting on him .
Morning sunrise on our beach
Each morning starts the same way and that’s eating breakfast. And for me that means an omelet. Even though there was always tons to eat 
I seemed to always pick the omelet guy. I was lucky that when I took this picture he was able to catch my breakfast in his pan and in one piece. Some people weren’t so lucky that morning.
Literally flipping my breakfast
After spending a nice time hanging out on the beach and the pool
Our beach
and having the best jerk chicken around
This guy just hacked and cut off a piece for you to eat. Crazy!
we found out where they were getting all the coconuts from that they were serving on the beach. Yea, just above everyone’s heads is where they were coming from! The hotel guys would take a machete and hack off some of the coconut so you can have a drink while lounging around. Now even though this sounds tempting – a cold drink from the bar with ice in it sounded much better 🙂
Now to do get ready for the night excursion.
A view of our room
I’m so excited to go on it tonight and could hardly wait! It was a Luminous Lagoon. Now are you saying to yourself.. ‘what in the heck it that’? Well let me tell you.
We were heading to a lagoon where the Martha Brae River meets the Caribbean Sea. This lagoon in the old days housed a wharf where large vessels from England unloaded goods onto smaller ships to be delivered inland up the river. Exciting right? Yea, not so much. But what is exciting about this lagoon is that are four of these in the world and the one in Jamaica is said to be the largest and most brilliant of all those 4 locations ! OK, now that IS COOL right! The water has a microscopic organism in it that’s called a Dinoflagellate and it works kind of like a firefly. When it gets agitated it glows. So off we go onto our next adventure. We wanted to bring not only our swimsuits, but also an empty bottle of water. You dip the water bottle into the water and it’s supposed to glow for about 5 days after. Yup… I was excited. I had my swimming suit on already and not just one camera in my bag this time – but two! When the bus pulled up to the lagoon, it wasn’t quite dark yet so they offered us a social hour to hang out until it was time. Finally it was dark and there was a bunch of us that climbed into this little boat. And if you ever had watched the Swamp People on the History Channel, our guide both looked and talked exactly like Troy Landry. Weird. As our guide – who I’m going to call Troy, was taking our small boat out to the middle of the lagoon the water behind us just billowed up with a bright blue glow. Now this is an awesome sight! You can hardly believe that this water does this. As we get to the middle of the lagoon, the boat stops and Troy asks if anyone wants to go swimming. He hardly got the whole sentence out and I was stripped down to my swimsuit and making my way to the front of the boat. Heck yea I’m going! After we got into the water I noticed that not too many people did actually go, but as in Rome do like the Romans right? I figured I’ll never get another chance to do this again. There was a bunch of pictures that we took but nothing turned out so well, so we ended up buying the pictures that they were offering. Now don’t get me wrong, I was glad that we had the chance to buy them, but only about 4 of the ones that they took actually turned out and man they were an expensive 4 pictures!
When you move your arms and legs it makes the water glow. Very Cool!
We ended up taking the water bottle back with us to the hotel rooms that we filled with the water and it did actually glow. I tried to take a picture of it under the bed covers, but after a bunch of tries I think Daryl was right – the pictures were just not going to turn out and please give up!
Part of the entertainment of the night was a guy who could do all these amazing things with his body. He could literally turn inside out and it almost made you hurt watching him. 
At the end of the night when it was time to get some sleep, I couldn’t shut off my brain just wondering what we’ll be able to see and do tomorrow. What a good time we were having!