Moon Honey

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Mark and I got back from the Jamaican honeymoon on Monday night. There’s not a whole lot to tell as we did a whole lot of nothing. Eating, drinking, sleeping, relaxing – just what we wanted.

My hands-down favorite part of the the trip was snorkeling on Friday afternoon. I had never been before so I was a bit nervous jumping ship but once I stuck my head in the water, I was amazed. It was so beautiful – another world. So colorful. I was amazed at how the sunlight and water combined to make patches of brilliant turquoise and deep blues. At first I tried to stick by Mark but it was difficult. Snorkeling seems to be a much more personal experience anyways so we just went our separate ways. I checked back in whenever I identified his brown swim trunks and legs dangling beneath the surface. I was jealous he and some others saw a sting ray. I think I saw a barracuda. We both enjoyed it so much that we decided to try to go again on Sunday. We got on an earlier trip and they were taking us out to a different reef. We were both excited – thinking maybe we’d see some different fish. We were traveling in a glass bottom boat – they must use it for separate sightseeing tours b/c they had wood panels covering the glass parts. We were almost to the reef when there was a loud noise. It didn’t sound right but I just thought they cut the engine really fast. But apparently we hit coral. Glass bottom boat + hitting coral = not good. The glass cracked and the boat started sinking. Mark said he saw the coral before we hit. Water was starting to come in the bottom and “oh shit” was written all over the faces of the captains. They radio’d out and I was a bit nervous when I heard “do you copy?” several times thinking no one on land was picking up. Eventually they sent out speed boats to see if we needed help. The captain sent the boats away when he got the motor started and we made it back in, sinking all the way. They beached us right on the sand instead of docking and by the time we made it back, all the glass was covered with water. So uh – we didn’t get to snorkel again but I’ve never been on a sinking boat so there’s still that…

Besides that, the only other glitch we had was that Mark swore the cleaning staff stole his deodorant.

Me, “So you don’t think it had anything to do with the fact that your stuff is on the edge of the sink and below that is the trash can?”

Mark, “No. They stole it so they could smell like me.”

Me, 🙂

First pic of the trip.

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These little sand crabs were so cute. Every time Mark got close to them, they would disappear and then another would pop out in a different place. It was like a game of pop-a-mole but with a camera and crabs.

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Breakfast was buffet style and eating outside. If you look closely, you can see a black bird on the chair in the background. These birds swooped in for table leftovers. One lady left a full plate of food on the table while she headed back in for more and found the birds eating her breakfast when she got back.

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We don’t know any of the people in this photo but we did all of these activities.

1) Peddle boats – it was like riding a Fisher Price big wheel on water. One day we took out individuals and another day we did the double bike.

2) Kayak – this was fun for a bit but honestly, I prefer it on a river. We really didn’t have a destination so we just rowed up to a pier and back a few times. On a river you have a destination and change of scenery. In the Caribbean, you just have beautiful clear water, white sand, a luxurious resort and the man you love to look at…oh… guess its not that bad 🙂

3) Randomly standing in the water. We did this.

We also tried the little sailboats (not illustrated). Mark was the captain and he did not like it too much so sailing didn’t last too long. I think we accidentally said yes when the guy asked if we wanted to learn to sail when we should have just said “no, we want someone to take us so we can be lazy”.

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Mark especially enjoyed the swim-up bar. We hung out here for a while and eventually started talking to a group of divorcees. There was a doctor on vacation with his secretary who openly admitted “we’re cheating”. I should probably mention that 98% of the people at the resort were honeymooners or so it seemed. It was actually a bit annoying how many people kept announcing “we just got married”. Yeah – you and everyone else here.

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Watching the steel drum band after dining on Jamaican cuisine.

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Self portrait before dinner at Tokyo Joe’s.

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Mark’s inaugural chopstick experience.

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Dancers after dinner.

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We headed down to the piano bar where there was supposed to be a piano player. We waited and waited. I fell asleep while Mark practiced his low-light photography. The piano player never showed but some crappy DJ did.

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The boat on the right is the glass bottom boat before she went down. Notice the life jackets and raft on top. The other is the boat that went out on excursions. Excursions cost a million dollars extra and we did not partake, opting to continue to indulge in what was “free”.

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Locals walk up and down the shoreline all day. On the first day, I listened to this guy’s seashell and then he tried to sell drugs to Mark. After that, we learned to ignore them yelling out “yaaa mon” to people on the beach.

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The sky got cloudy like this I think every night but it never rained over the resort. We really had great weather.

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Italiano for dinner. Our waiter’s name was Mark too so he liked us and took this picture. This is day 4 of the trip. On day 1, we had dinner at the pub and ordered an appetizer to share. When it came out all puny, we learned quickly that in Jamaica you order individual appetizers. Our reservations at the Italian place were at 9:30 and since we were really only eating 2 meals a day, we were super hungry. We ordered 2 appetizers each. Later in the week, I overheard a rather rotund gentlemen advise a “newbie” couple to order 3 appetizers each. Heh. Way to represent America! Yeah! All the meals at the dinner restaurants were multi-course. Portions were smaller but by the time you got to dessert, you were pleasantly full. I prefer this to the way most restaurants are here but I also prefer to go into a restaurant, eat 5 courses and then walk out without paying so go figure…

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Our room.

On Friday we had reservations at the French restaurant. It was at the other resort so we had to shuttle-bus-it over there. But the shuttle only runs at certain times so we passed time walking around taking pics. Here I am on a bridge. Exciting stuff.

Here we are in a gazebo at the end of a pier. It was super hot.

Finally 7 o’clock rolled around and we went to eat. We were hoping it would be inside (AC) but the dining area was outside squeezed in a corridor between buildings. No breeze at all. This was hottest part of the entire trip.

Mark sucked this merlot down like it was water. Later he explained that he was thirsty to which I asked if he noticed the glass of water directly next to the wine glass.

This was our dinner pet. We couldn’t tell if she was fat because she was pregnant or because she lives on a resort and is awesome at begging. She loved the swordfish I fed her. Wasn’t really interested in the carrot Mark tried to give her. I tried to tell him…

Mark accused me of being jealous he had something Halloweenish to wear and he was right. I settled for an orange shirt – it was the best I could come up with.

Here we are with the Jamaican Grim Reaper. He actually posed with us so one of the annoying resort photographers could snap the pic (available later for purchase of course) but I snuck one in with our camera too. In general we humored the photographers but towards the end it was getting annoying. They even walked out into the water when you were getting off a peddle boat, kayak, etc. The worst was when we were out in the water minding our own business dumping water on each with the cups from the drinks we had just finished and a camera guy waded out to take what he called “photo of a lifetime”.  Then he backed up and had us run towards the camera. In our swimsuits. Yeeeeeah, like I ever want to see that picture. He also had a sweet pose where he had us lay on the sand and I had to hold out my hand and smile at my ring while Mark smiled at me… Yeah…  We never looked at any of the photos…

Entertainment on Halloween kicked off with two Michael Jacksons and 3 zombies dancing to Thriller. Mark was really excited to hear this song again that day b/c hearing it blasting on repeat from the cruise boat all afternoon was not enough for him.*

*This is a lie. I think Mark is Thriller-ed out.

They left these flowers in our room.

Waiting for the shuttle to take us to our last dinner of the trip.

Passing time again waiting for dinner. But this time we started using the timer so we could both be in the pics! The boat behind us is what we had to take to the Thai restaurant which is on its own little island.

Dinner destination.

Cheers to being married for 8 days!

Mark using chopsticks again. I took a series of these photos to have evidence that he cleaned his plate of Thai food.**

**Mark has previously claimed to not like Thai food

Whew! That’s it! As you can probably tell from the photos, the only schedule we followed was what time we had to eat dinner. Other than that, we slept in and spent our afternoons at the beach, pool and hot tub, often rotating between them. We also frequented the beach grill/bar.

Ok. Seriously. I’ve spent way too long on this post.

7 thoughts on “Moon Honey

  1. jamie

    Emily – this was at Sandals Montego Bay, which one did you stay at?

    Kara – don’t worry, we only saw the crabs the first day we were there towards sunset and they were on the deserted part of the beach. I still think they are cute. Heh

    Jessica – he liked it. His plate was clean!

    Reply
  2. emily claire

    We stayed at Ocho Rios. It looks like your beach was much nicer, and we didn’t have an island restaurant. But that’s okay. I’m glad you had fun! I’d like to stay at some of the other Sandals, too.

    Reply
  3. Sarah

    Um- Can I say, jealous! Nick and I giggled about your glass bottom boat breaking. I have always wondered what happens when a glass bottom boat strikes something! Whoah!

    Reply

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