Ocho Rios

Nov 26th
Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Today was great! After a safety meeting early in the morning, Thad, Brandon, Gianni, and myself all left the ship to go to the beach for free diving. Brandon and I went to the dive shop earlier in the morning to borrow a face mask, snorkel and fins, to use when we got to the beach. After walking a ways along the coastline, we made it to this small beach that you could only get to by climbing through a gap in the fence, walking down a steep hill, and following a path through the foliage. But once you got there, it was just this small beach that no one really knew about, and considering it was just us four and the couple locals that had a shack there for selling drinks, it was the perfect Jamaican get away. The beach wasn’t the nicest or most beautiful I’ve ever been on, but it had a nice view, and directly to the left, was a fairly large waterfall formed by the Dunn’s river, and this was one of the places where the river emptied into the ocean. It wasn’t long though till we were in the water swimming, which was really warm. But it was interesting to observe the effects of the river on the ocean, because you’d be swimming along, and out of no where, you’d run into this small patch of really cold water from the river, and meanwhile, you wouldn’t be able to see under the water because the mixing of the salt and fresh water made everything extremely blurry, but that was all closer to land. We were aimed to go much further out, to where the reef dropped off and the depth suddenly went from 5 feet to 30-40 feet. It was there that we’d take a big breath, dive down and swim around, and them come back up for air. It wasn’t the nicest day as far as waves were concerned, and the chop made everything more difficult up on the surface. I didn’t see anything too amazing, but that didn’t mean I didn’t have a great time swimming and enjoying the environment. I saw a bunch of those black spiny sea urchins, a good number of small fish, and some great coral formations. It was just me and Thad for a while, until Brandon made his way out to where we were, at which point, I was about ready to go back in and take a break. So while Thad and Brandon continued, I swam back inland to a large tree that was just laying above the reef, somewhat wedged into place, where I then just sat for a while enjoying the scenery. Swimming back in was really difficult though, not to mention dangerous, The reef was only in about 3 feet of water, if even that, and with the waves, it make it extremely easy to get pushed into a rock and cut something. So swimming inland meant stay right at the surface, small kicks, and constant awareness of your surroundings so you didn’t catch a wave at the wrong time and find your chest all cut up from rubbing against a piece of coral. And because ot the fins and still moderate depth, it was impossible to walk on the reef without falling. I was lucky enough to escape with a slight scratch to my palm from an over ambitious free stroke, but nothing else. Both Thad and Brandon ended up with a few cuts on their legs that drew blood, which still seemed fairly fortunate to how bad we could have ended up had we not been pretty competent swimmers.
When we got back to the beach, we dried off quickly, removed our swim gear, and went to go play in the waterfall. We climbed up to the top of the thing, which was great, minus stepping on some of the most painful rocks ever. We took a lot of picture of the picturesque area and climbed back down, where Thad and I eventually found a small little cove behind the fall itself. It was really cool to be able to stand there on the other side of the fall watching all the water in front of you like something you’d see in the movies. After a few more pictures, we went back to the beach, all drank a red stripe (Jamaican beer), and eventually started to walk back to the ship. Gianni had left way earlier because he didn’t have the gear that we all had, so at that point it was just Thad, Brandon, and me. Thad broke off of the group to go back to the ship when we were outside the gate, where as Brandon and I continued on to find a place to eat. Thad told us of a fast food place called Juici Patty, which after a lot of looking, we stumbled across. Juici Patties are almost like some kind of Calzone, except the bread is fried and flakey, and my beef juici didn’t have anything inside the breading but a spiced ground beef. I liked it, and it was really cheep, and these are the types of places we like to find because it’s where all the locals go to eat.
We then made it back to the ship, where all we had to do that night was play a big band set. Tomorrow will be Grand Cayman, but unfortunately, we have a tech run to play right in the middle of our port time, meaning I don’t know how long I’ll be able to spend in the city, but we’ll see.