I’ve been featured in the Cheapflights blog in their Travel Bloggers choice series. Take a look at why I think Treasure Beach, Jamaica is a destination everyone should visit.
View from a villa
Cheapflights is the UK’s leading flight deals provider and if you haven’t already booked your flights to Jamaica, take a look at their site.
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Since my arrival in Jamaica, I’ve been soaking up everything around me, especially flowers. Many, like this one, the Shrimp Plant, are new to me. Some I know but have forgotten their names.
Shrimp plant
I’m surprised how many fruit trees I don’t remember. I know the popular ones, like the mango, banana, coconut. But guava, naseberry, starapple, for example, if they’re not in fruit, I’m lost. So I’m also getting re-acquainted.
While I’m doing that, please take a look at my post on Treasure Beach and a few of my previous posts on Jamaica.
Sometimes, the best photos are the ones imprinted on our minds. They capture more than just the images.
That thought was in my mind as I looked through my collection to select the photos for this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge. There’s an image related to water that I wish I had captured on film so I could share.
Fountain at the Louvre - Maynephoto
Some people can’t live without the mountains, I can’t live without water. I love looking at, playing in and being around it. But from time to time, I get so caught up in the everyday that I forget that I need water to wash away the rough edges, to balance and smooth me out. Sometimes, I even forget that I actually live on an island and am therefore surrounded by water.
I remember the day several years ago when I jumped into a cab in a mad rush to get to Penn Station. I was late and pressed the driver to hurry. I could feel the tension in my body when I settled into the back seat.
As the cab zoomed crosstown, I became so overwhelmed by the worry that I wouldn’t make the train that I was oblivious to everything around me. When the car turned onto the West Side Highway, something caused me to look up.
There it was. The Hudson River. I fell silent as I stared at the water, deep blue and sparkling under the mid-day sun. My worry fell away and a calm washed over me. I continued to stare even as we turned off the highway.
More thoughts on the significance of water came to me as I sifted through my photos. I used to reject anything that came easily. Life was about struggle. Swimming upstream meant whatever was achieved was worth it. Then I realized how sweeter it is to be in alignment with one’s purpose and go with the flow.
I was looking out the window in the kitchen of my uncle’s house in Canada when the scene changed and I was standing on the beach in Jamaica that I used to go as a child. I was near a sea grape tree, looking towards the ocean. I could taste and smell the sea and raised my hand to shade my eyes from the sun dancing on the waves. Suddenly, I was back in the kitchen but overwhelmed by homesickness. I decided to go home and did the next morning.
I spent a beautiful week with the only grandfather I knew. He died a week to the day I arrived.
Me, a teenager, sneaking off to the river with friends when my mom said not to leave the house and almost getting carried away by the current. I stopped struggling and floated to the surface.
Going to Coney Island Beach one rainy Thanksgiving Day. Passing the changing area and stepping onto the sand to the sound of the waves as they crashed ashore, the birds calling to each other and feeling at peace. I cried that day on the beach, in the rain. For joy.
A Musing Elephant and I exchanged a few comments about a recent post on her blog. When she mentioned that one of favorite places in Jamaica is Pelican Bar, I felt I had “met” a kindred spirit. Pelican Bar is one of my favorite places as well.
Our exchanges took me back to my first trip to the bar and the memories I have which serve me now on this cold day in the north east.
Pelican Bar is located on a sand bank about a quarter of a mile off the south western coast of Jamaica between Black River and Treasure Beach.
As Floyd, the owner, tells it, the idea for the bar came to him in a dream. He built it, and they’ve been coming.
Pelican Bar has been named one of the sexiest swim-up bars and has a fan page on Facebook.
Yes, this is the only way to get there
The only way to get there is by boat so don’t think of going if you’re afraid of the water or if the sea is rough.
