12-25-2013, 07:56 PM
<P>Merry Christmas from not so sunny today Port Antonio. This morning we were up early, ate breakfast and loaded up the car heading south east, no exact destination in mind. We just wanted to see a new beach, and shortly after passing the turnoff to Frenchmans, we blew by the blue lagoon turnoff, but then saw san san beach. Wasn't sure if we could drive thru the narrow entrance but there was a guy there holding a rake waving us in. Entry fee - 500j each. First thing we noticed was the lack of people, we were the only ones there. It looked OK, but the nicest part of the sandy beach still needed to be raked, he just finished the area close to where we parked. The "caretaker" showed us where there were showers plus where you could get drinks. He also introduced us to the boat tour guy. We basically settled in a nice spot where we could lean up on a grassy ledge, but within about 10 minutes it started to rain, hard enough to chase us into the car. This ended up being a repeating problem for the next hour at least. On one of the dry spells the boat tour dude offered me the opportunity to buy him some rum, he was even willing to ride his bike to go get it lol. A few other people had showed up and left and eventually we decided to leave as well. It looked like it would rain for a while, plus the water didn't look all that inviting, lots of weedy debris. It was an OK place but I don't know if we will return there, wasn't really feeling it there, although if it was sunny and a few more people around it would have been a lot better.<BR>So we left and continued down the road eventually driving by boston jerk centre and boston beach. The sky had cleared a bit and the beach looked inviting so we found a place to turn around and drove back to the entrance to the beach. One of the cook shop guys was first to "greet" us. I learned first there is no entrance fee, and that food and drink is very available right there. We decided to stay awhile, so we grabbed our towels, cooler and some reading material. Before we made it to the beach we were approached by a guy selling an assortment of necklaces. Although that's the last thing either of us needed my wife bought one from him for 5US and we made our way to the sand. This place was a bit busier, probably 15 people there, mostly locals. Theres a trail on one side of the cove that leads to a stairway and platform where if you have bigger balls than me you could jump into the sea. We walked to the platform and took some pics. It was a good place to watch a couple young Jamaicans surfing. Then back to the beach, laid out our towels and chilled. We ended there for a few hours and we would have stayed longer except we had put our name down for the xmas dinner being served at our hotel at 3pm. We had a few vendors come up to offer their wares. One fellow, Ja Tiger, was selling his own cd's. He was carrying a Caribbean travel magazine that had almost a full page picture of him. He had a small cd player with him and he wanted me to listen to some of his music. It was decent, even pretty good. He wanted 1000j but settled for 500, autograph included. We had a good chat with a lifeguard, Joseph. Real nice guy and if we go back (we will) I'm going to let him give me some surf lessons. The waves were pretty big further out from the beach and by time we were getting close to leaving there were quite a few guys surfing, it was a treat to watch. I went into the water for a bit myself, it was Negril 7 mile beach temp, warmer than frenchmans for sure. It actually mostly cleared up once we got to Boston, no more rain (until tonight) Oh ya, we also got some jerk pork and breadfruit from the cook stand. The pork was good but had lots of fat on it, breadfruit isn't my favorite but their tasty and spicy sauce really helped. We never stopped at the official jerk centre but will in the next while. Ja Tiger told us of a live concert right by there on Friday. We might go, hard to say for sure. When I go to such an event I like to smoke and drink a bit, and that means driving impaired, and that is something that will not happen. I don't want to risk getting hurt from something I did wrong, and besides, we have seen a lot of police check stops, although so far we have not been stopped. Today coming back there was a white guy pulled over right at the mockingbird hill entrance, looked like he was getting a sobriety test. Speaking of mockingbird, on the way back we drove up to the restaurant, we are thinking about trying it out after reading all the reviews. Their prices are pretty steep, so we are thinking about it. Don't mind paying the price for good food, but I am wary of places that have serving sizes inversely proportional to the price. Anyone here been there? How is it?<BR>So we came back to hotel, showered. I even put on some slightly dressy PANTS for xmas supper. It was nothing special, only 3 tables with people, we had a choice of fish or goat. So we had escovitch fish with a few fixings, and free sparkling champagne woohhooo. The food at our hotel is decent, but the service has been very good.<BR>After supper we drove to a nearby store and stocked up on rum, beer, snack, ice. Got back to hotel, rolled up, mixed a couple cocomania drinks, and made our made to our private rooftop lounge, where I "was" writing this. Around the time my wife was face timing her family on the cell it started to rain. So back down to the room. Gonna finish our rummies then make a short walk to one of the close bars and have a couple beers. You can hear the reggae clearly from our open window, I want to go find the source.<P>