Hello everyone! Sorry it has been so long since I've blogged but I'm about to catch up fast. Just to prove how hectic life in NYC can be- it has taken me a month to sit down and post about Jamaica. Ahh only a month ago we were enjoy the salty turquoise sea and drinking fresh fruit smoothies by day and pina coladas by night. What a wonderful time we had! I wish we could have stayed longer. As soon as we touched down and stepped off the plane, I felt the hot humid air and knew I had made the right choice. When I booked the trip to Jamaica, no one had mentionned that it was hurricane season and I was a little worried until I saw that tropical storm Ernesto had aleady passed. So the highlights of our brief but wonderful adventure:

SNORKELING- we spent all day every day in the water!!! We took two snorkeling trips on a glass bottom boat and the rest of the day we splashed in the almost clear waters along the Seven Mile Beach.

DIVING- we stayed at a nice place along the cliffs, the Samsara Hotel. http://www.negrilhotels.com/samsara/index.asp
We had a beautiful view from our room and spent a lot of time swimming off the crab-covered cliffs. We even ran into a huge crab scrambling from the hotel restaurant back to the ocean. I'm sure he was thinking, "that was a close one." I even was courageous enough to make the 'jump.'



PLAYING RESCUE HERO- so the day we got in, we immediately went down to the cliffs to swim. We were testing the temperature of the water farther down the cliffs where there was a ladder to go down in to the water, when I couple came up to the diving point. I overheard the boyfriend say, 'Are you sure you wanna jump?' and she replied, 'Yes I'm gonna do it this time, but you have to promise to bring me back.' Now right away I expected the worse and as I continued to eavesdrop, their conversation only confirmed my fear. She repeated, 'Ok promise me that you can get me to the ladder.' They held hands and jumped off the cliff into the calm turquoise waters below and as they surfaced the woman clung to the boyfriend like a drowing woman to a life raft- literally. Well, he managed to stay afloat but he was clearly dog paddling. The couple was about ten feet away from the ladder and I whispered in French to Florent to go save the girl. So he started to get in the water, when the woman called over to us that she needed help. So Florent swam over and she clamped onto his back and he brought her to the ladder, while her boyfriend sheepishly followed exausted from the effort. I nearly sent Florent back for him. Anyways, Florent started the vacation out a hero and the episode proved that even stupid people travel. I mean, come on, who jumps off a ten foot cliff into the sea when they don't even know how to swim? And I hope the oh-so-macho boyfriend learned his lesson and will have the guts next time to say he can't swim either!