1 First look at the ocean This was my first look at the sea. The bus driver who took us from the airport to the resort stopped for a bathroom break at a little jerk shack by the road. A storm was moving out over the ocean.
2 Entrance This was the best picture I could get of the front of the resort highlighting the Jamaican flag (which also is the background image for this page) while de-emphasizing the flag of the corporation that owns the resort.
3 Driveway Here's the driveway of the resort looking south towards the bulk of the island.
4 Main entrance This is where we were dropped off, where the front desk was, and where we met for tours and such. It was usually nicely breezy. This was looking into the resort. You can see a little of the giant, interesting chandelier (which they didn't light up- it probably would've heated up the area too much!)
5 Our building Here's your first view of the building where our room was. There's greenery everywhere.
6 View from our building When you got to the second story and looked out, you saw this courtyard and gazebo.
7 View from our building Looking to the right, you saw the buildings where the nurse's station and spa rooms (massage, pedicures, etc.) were.
8 Our room This motif was everywhere, the little cartoon naked people.
9 The room Here's a shot from the doorway. The TV had a VCR in it (how quaint!) and the bed was actually 2 twin beds mashed together.
10 The bed Here's looking toward the doorway. Yes, there's a mirror over the bed. That can either be fun or disturbing, depending.
11 Heart towel Every day housekeeping did towel origami on the bed.
12 Mirrors Mirrors everywhere! In it, you can see Eric engaging in a typical Jamaican activity- reading the Bible.
13 Tiny living room There you have it- the tiny living room. Note the lack of carpet. With the humidity and pool/sea activities, having carpet anywhere on the resort would be crazy.
14 Closet, safe, dresser Not sure why this deserved a picture, but what the heck. There were 2 safes- one was locked when we arrived. Who knows what was in it? Also, why did I bring a bathrobe?
15 Room instructions I find these things fascinating. First off, you get to see a floor plan (both for our room and for the suite on the left end). Also a preview of what sort of disasters to expect- aside from the usual fire, we have instructions for hurricanes and earthquakes.
16 Bathroom The nicely appointed bathroom. Note the very large tub; I'm happy to have lost living room space to accomodate it. There was a mirror over it, too.
17 Bathroom view The shutters there don't open, but you can see light through them- they also let in humidity and bugs. For this reason we kept the bathroom door shut, despite the gorgeous view.
18 Sign We had to sign a waver saying we would not photograph the nude area, so don't tell anyone. This was taken from my bathroom window. We often saw nude folks strolling from their rooms to the beach or the pool.
19 Nude pool bar There were 3 pools, and bars at each of them. Looking out of the window in our bathroom to the right, you can see the bar attached to the nude pool. This bar also had a little grill.
20 Bathroom view This is looking straight out. In addition to the view, you could also hear the partygoers in the pool (especially at night), birds all day and frogs all night, and the constant boom of the surf underneath it all.
21 Chessboard This is looking to the left. The sandy area right underneath our window included a volleyball court, and there was a giant chessboard beyond that. There were also hammocks and swinging platforms with mattresses on them scattered about.
22 Sign Enough with the view from the room! Next we explored the resort. The orange flakes on top of the sign are shelf fungus. Did I mention it was HUMID? Note the "see no evil" little people at the top of the sign, with the extra chick at the end.
23 Munasan That sign in pic. 22 is right beyond the main entrance breezeway. To the left of it is Munasan, a Japanese teppan-yaki restaurant. That means 8 of us were seated around a big griddle where they cooked our dinner.
24 Pastafari To the right, the Italian restaurant, Pastafari. I didn't see any direct connection to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but it was probably kept quiet. The food was not bad, but not terrific either.
25 Main bar Directly beyond the main entrance was the main bar, which was attached to the main 'prude' pool and right next to the main dining room. This was where you were most likely to see people wearing clothes, since dining in the buff was not allowed.
26 Prude pool Here's the prude pool from the bar. You can also see part of the main dining room, which was open. You can also see some vendors and beyond them, the prude beach which we'll see more of shortly.
27 Prude pool The vendors weren't employed by the resort. They would try to sell you pretty much anything.
The prude pool was almost always completely empty. We went in the off-season, so the resort was probably not even half-full.
28 Main dining room Here's a shot from the dining room looking over the prude pool. You can see the pool table in the pool, which was felted with astroturf.
It got hot early; eating breakfast much later than 9am could be unpleasant unless there was a breeze.
29 Prude pool More pool, and another peek at the beach- that's where all the Hobie cats and other sports activities were.
The pools were always sparkling, clean, and clear. I know what a pain it can be to maintain a pool, so I was impressed.
30 Waterslide Walking towards the vendors and the beach and looking back, you can see where the glass-bottomed hot tub is- above the "Hedonism" sign in the stone tower. The building in the middle has a little casino and pool tables on the bottom and a disco on the second floor. The fenced area at the very top is where you get into the waterslide, which you can see curves through the disco, around the building, and into the pool.
31 Prude beach Looking back out to sea, there is the prude beach. There was hardly ever anyone there. Eric suspects the beach was man-made; because boats and jet-skis are always pulling in the area where you could swim was pretty small. But you could lounge in the deck chairs, and at night do some very good star-gazing there.
32 Beach sports That's where all the fun water activites originated. The rainbowy boats were Hobie cats; you could also get snorkeling and scuba gear, and take lessons in windsurfing and waterskiing. Kayaks were available in one and two person sizes. Boats came in to take people snorkeling, scuba diving, or touring in a glass-bottom boat.
33 Beach from above Past the beach and a short walk away was the best restaurant at the resort, the Scotch Bonnet. It was more authentic Jamaican food, so lots of jerked anything, fish, and stews. There was a bar on top of it that had a great view- this was where I took this picture.
34 Eric at Scotch Bonnet Here we were dining at our favorite place. The sea was just a few feet away. In addition to the great view, they served a variety of tasty authentic Jamaican dishes, with specials every day.
35 Sea Leaving the Scotch Bonnet, there's a boardwalk that runs along the shoreline that leads back to the nude area. We'd often stand on the boardwalk and just watch the surf pound away.
36 Nude beach The nude beach is bracketed by 2 piers that had several deck chairs. We did a lot of star-gazing from those piers. There was a break in front of the nude beach, but that made the swimming a lot more interesting because coral grew all over the rocks, and plenty of fish swam around it.
37 Shore You can see my shadow taking the picture from the boardwalk, and Eric's shadow waving. There were little tidal pools with crabs and creatures that looked like trilobites.
38 Boardwalk Eric is headed toward the wedding gazebo. You can see where some waves splashed up onto the boardwalk.
39 Stacy This is one of the more acceptable pictures of me. None of the pictures really captured the amazingly bright colors of the sea; all jewel-tone shades of blue when the sun was out.
40 Wedding gazebo Lots of people get hitched here. I like the fronds in the heart shape; one night they were woven with red hibiscus flowers; you can still see a couple on the floor.
41 Sea I really enjoyed watching the sea. It changed colors constantly, but when you looked straight down was clear as glass.
42 Hibiscus There was wonderful landscaping at this place. We had flowering hibiscus bushes all around our building.
43 Flora Here's more flowers; I saw lizards everywhere and heard birds of all kinds. I saw a couple of hummingbirds too!
44 Banananas Here's an actual banana tree! I later found out that they take 9 months from being planted to bearing fruit, just like people.
45 Eric, photographer Eric took pictures with his good camera to compliment the ones from my little camera. Here he is in traditional attire shooting the room. Nakedness not just for fun, it was the most comfortable way to be since it was so hot and humid.
46 Martha Brae river rafting On Tuesday, we went on an excursion that included this trip to the Martha Brae river for some bamboo rafting. It was just some poles lashed together and our guide, Sewell.
47 Martha Brae river Sewell pointed out a lot of the vegetation, explaining medicinal and culinary properties. I am not sure, but I think this might be a pimento tree.
48 Blue heron This blue heron sat in a branch that arched right over our heads.
49 Martha Brae river This was about as rough as the river got. There were even vendors on the side of the road selling t-shirts, Red Stripe, and carvings.
50 Martha Brae river Their kudzu/mustang grape vine that strangles other plants is morning glory.
51 Martha Brae river Here are some Tarzan vines.
52 Martha Brae river This little shack is near a banana grove. They plant banana trees, wait the 9 months until they make bananas, then chop the whole tree down and plant another.
53 Martha Brae river Here's an example where they get all the bamboo to make these rafts. These spires were 40 feet high.
54 Martha Brae river Also to be found were coconut trees, lime trees, and fig trees.
55 Martha Brae river Right in the center of the picture is a termite nest. Apparently they are not as hard on trees as they are on houses, so they're left alone.
56 Sewell Sewell spotted this flower in a bush, poled the raft over to it and picked it for us.
57 Martha Brae river rafting Then he offered to take a picture of Eric giving me the flower, which is a bird of paradise flower.
58 Sewell Sewell had some casaba gourds that he carved in his spare time, and he brought some to show us and offered to carve our names on one.
59 Sewell The design included flowers and the national bird of Jamaica, the doctor bird, which is a hummingbird with a long tail.
60 Columbus Bay Our next stop was a bay where Columbus parked his ship for a couple of years for repairs. There was a little park that had artifacts from the Spanish occupation.
61 Columbus Bay Here is a water wheel thingy that's older than the USA, probably.
62 Columbus Bay My favorite part of this stop was the water, which was an especially lovely shade of turquoise.
63 Bauxite plant Eric's favorite part was the bauxite plant. Bauxite looks like red dirt, and Jamaica has a whole lot of it. They sell it in vast quantities.
64 Bauxite plant Other countries take the bauxite and turn it into aluminum. So huge ships would pull into this bay and load up on the stuff, which had gone from the ground into this dome and down a conveyor belt out on a pier.
65 Bauxite plant Here's where the bauxite gets loaded onto a ship. Bauxite used to be Jamaica's biggest export, but the aluminum market's gotten a lot smaller thanks to plastics, so now their biggest money-maker is tourism.
66 Columbus Bay Our tour guide offered to take our picture. Eric is pondering about the decline of the bauxite industry in Jamaica.
67 Cannon To cheer him up, there was an ancient cannon for him to admire. It was under an almond tree, and you can see most of the Columbus Park exhibit in the background.
68 Last drink We did many other interesting things on our vacation, but didn't lug the camera around for most of them so our final picture was taken on the last day of our trip. As we were waiting for the bus that was going to take us back to the airport we split one last drink at the bar- their specialty drink, the dirty banana. Since most of the bars had pools attached to them, you got your drink in a plastic cup.
