Hello everyone from Iowa! 

I’ve been home a day and some hours on each side of it. 
I enjoyed getting to spend a little time after Jamaica in Dexter with Emily’s family and friends at church. I told Emily that we should try and do that again if I get enough time. 

We had a wonderful fish fry with the fixings after church. I may have over did it at lunch because all I could eat at supper time was a banana Sunday that actually had more than one piece of banana in it! I don’t remember if I mentioned that I started to crave bananas. While in Jamaica they had banana French toast (one piece of banana), banana pastry (no pieces of banana or banana flavor), banana sunday (one piece of banana) banana bread ( I had a piece but it didn’t taste like banana bread to me) and a fresh fruit area with no bananas. I did see bunches of bananas hanging in the little towns on the way to and from the airport. 

Monday, Emily and I went to the new aquarium in St Louis at the old Union Station. They turned the station into a very nice entertainment area. Excellent use of the facility. They had freshwater and saltwater tanks. It was very nice. They do tickets in groups every 15 minutes, so you do have to plan for that. I recommend ordering online before you go and pick a time that works for you. 
There is a ropes course there that we will have to try. We did the mirror maze but it wasn’t very big and a bit disorienting for some. Kids probably like it though. 
Outside they had a big Ferris wheel and some carnival games. If you go into the soda fountain and candy shop they will validate your parking at the candy counter for three hours. The aquarium was just over an hour to go through with watching a talk about sloths and touching the stingrays. The maze was about 5 minutes. 

I had a busy day yesterday getting caught up on things around the house. For all the rain while I was gone, my yard wasn’t too bad. I did have to go over it twice to make it look nice. 
I still have until Sunday before I go back to being a paramedic so I’m going to see about camping with a friend on his property outside of Gibbs, Mo. It needs a lot of cleanup. It’s a good place for riding my atv, doing some shooting (I have a rifle that needs sighted in) and having a campfire after mowing, picking up garbage and trimming trees. 

I’m glad that I was able to get a chance to visit and meets some of our readers!  

We made it back to the US! I’m not impressed with Southwest in Jamaica. Getting checked in was a disorganized mess, nothing was clearly marked. We had to keep asking if we were in the right spot. The staff were friendly, the Jamaican people always were that we dealt with. 

Our travel agent booked us in the VIP lounge, it does have better A/C than the rest of the airport but the food was terrible. I didn’t eat mine and Emily said after that they were the worst chicken tenders she’d ever had and hoped she didn’t get sick. They do have a open bar if that’s your thing. 

Lining up for boarding was equally chaotic as check in. Leaving, both airports had very nice line up areas with signs, Jamaica was a free for all after they gave your boarding group. Maybe Sean-Pierre will be getting a little email from me about maybe getting that fixed since he lobbied for the nonstop service from the Midwest to Jamaica. 

I’m glad that I was able to get away and do some traveling. Jamaica wasn’t high on my list of places before and unless I was planning on taking advantage of the the diving there I don’t foresee going back. 

We’re going to be a little adventurous here in Missouri before I go back home. We are planning to visit some museums in St. Louis.

We had a pleasant chat with a couple in the shuttle from the resort, made the hour and a half go by. They had done some interesting travel. 

Our flight wasn’t bad, southwest doesn’t seem to have planes with video screens in the seat backs. Three and a half hour flight could use a movie. I loaded Spiderman Homecoming on my phone before we left the resort and I was glad that I did. Emily was able to watch it on my phone, we had to share headphones because I have forgotten to put a splitter in my travel bag. My otterbox case has a belt clip on it that works well to clip to the tray table while it’s in the upright position. 

For those looking for travel tips, one of the things I do find handy for myself, is my old EMS work shorts. The leg/ cargo pockets have zippered areas that I use for my passport and wallet. One on each side. If I don’t use those I have my Columbia pants with zip off legs that pack easy and are versatile. They also have leg/ cargo pockets, though one is zippered and the other just velcro. I never did use the Columbia pants as we never were able to schedule a night at the fancy restaurant on property because of our different activities, the days it was open and it just didn’t seem worth doing after it was all said and done.

Well everyone this trip is winding down. It’s bittersweet, I will be happy to be back home in the near future since I can’t just stay on vacation. I suppose it would be good to go back to work and start looking at what we will do for our next adventure. 
We both tested negative for covid so we didn’t get contaminated while here, hopefully it stays that way. We have a direct flight back to St. Louis tomorrow, I’m curious as to how many people are in Jamaica going on our flight. We have seen a few people from Iowa here and a lot from the south. 

I do want to take an opportunity to mention that our bags are holding up and that we were able to bring enough clothes for the trip. Emily did need to have some laundry done while we were here, she had planned on that. It is a good option to remember when you are traveling, most hotels will do laundry for you overnight. You don’t have to pack everything when you go! 

We tried a new Coppertone Sport sunscreen, it works okay and stays on in the water well, I am not a fan. It is very greasy and worse when you are in the water. I like the Equate brand that is a knock off of the Neutrogena ultra sheer. It has kept us from getting bad sunburns. It’s nice because it is a stick so easy to put on and it doesn’t need to be put with your liquids. Sunscreen can be very expensive in sunny locations, it’s better to bring it with you. 

Another product endorsement from me, Nexcare waterproof bandages. I recommend carrying these in with your travel items. They stay on!  I would say extremely well, but that may imply that at some point the come off. So far the one I put on a blister from the flippers is still on. I have dove a few times with flippers, swam in the pool, sat in the jacuzzi and showered multiple times with it. Wearing shoes has not rubbed it off either. They were a bit more expensive than some of the other waterproof ones at Walmart, definitely worth it. Get several sizes and keep them on hand. 

This morning after breakfast we took a kayak and went out to Emily’s snorkel spot and spent some time looking around. We seen starfish and a big ray that was hiding in the sand. I did see one lion fish. On the way back Emily swam the whole way! 
We then hung out in the pool just to relax and not be pushed around by the waves before getting ready for lunch. 

The Couple’s resort does not allow the staff to take tips and they watch the staff on camera and they will get in trouble if they are seen doing so. I know that the website says that everything is included, including tips. Hopefully they pay the staff well. The staff has been very friendly and helpful. They are very service oriented. I would like to see a better selection of snacks available all the time. Maybe that’s part of getting the minibar stocked? We didn’t need anything in ours and you have to contact someone to get things restocked. I know some hotels have snacks with the minibar. We should have gotten a list maybe. 
   Side note, we had the opportunity to chat with an employee here and it does not sound like they are paid well here. It’s possible the pay rate hasn’t changed for ten years. They get paid per day if what we were told is true. While we don’t plan on stopping our travels we do feel that we need to look at traveling more ethically, try and make choices that will benefit a local over a big corporation. There is a lot of money that gets spent here but it goes to the big companies that run the resorts which is not good in a place like this that is a very tourist centered economy. 

This afternoon we went down and worked out. I did a chest and abs with a side of bi’s and tri’s while Emily was outside on the gym deck doing hers. It was good timing again as nobody was in the gym and I didn’t have to wait on anyone for equipment. My bandage was still stuck but the bottom had come loose so I did remove it. Since I won’t be wearing flippers anymore I should be go without it. 

After Emily was supposed to be doing Spanish but the internet here isn’t good for streaming. We did talk with Sharon and David from back home and it’s cold there. I seen my friend posted that he was worried about his crops. Hopefully it won’t get too cold. 

I will probably need to do a post after I get back to Iowa and can go through a bunch of videos and get some pictures from my dives. There will be more sea life to share. I may have to upgrade my camera situation in the future. I still recommend getting a cheap gopro knock-off for using on trips. Mine has worked really well for $20. I do think that it was not rated for whatever the maximum depth I was at. It has a little wiggle in the latch now when I get past 15 feet. It will probably pop open one of these days if I keep diving with it. I will use it for snorkeling and other water sports that don’t involve diving very deep. 

Our dinner companions from the other night, Sally and Sean, they took a trip to Rick’s Cafe and Sally was injured jumping off the cliff. I’m not sure how she is, they brought her back here in the boat and took her out on a backboard and after a while there was an ambulance here. I know she was in a lot of pain. The resort makes you sign a disclaimer and tells you that they don’t recommend jumping off any cliffs. We never had the opportunity to do that but I am guessing that we would have if we would have taken that trip. We hope she gets well soon. 

I have about finished repacking my Hynes Eagle bag. I just have a few things left to put in it in the morning and I will be ready to leave. We have to go get on the shuttle at 9:15, our flight is nonstop to St. Louis (thanks for lobbying for that flight to our other new friend Sean-Pierre!). We should be in Missouri around supper time! 

After dinner we walked on the beach and then went for a swim. I got some pictures uploaded from our snorkeling adventure this morning. Emily got her packing done. 

Hope everyone is well!!

Bill and I did a really fun snorkeling trip this morning. We took a two person kayak out to my snorkel location, and parked it in the cove I found. The guy who gave us the kayak told us to stay in an area where they could see us, and technically we did that. Bill spotted a huge stingray napping partially covered in the sand. It was spectacular! We could also see where it had been sleeping in other places. It left indentations in the sand, especially with it’s long tail. It watched us carefully as we floated over it, but it didn’t move. I sort of wanted to dive down to look at it more closely, but it’s not called a stingray for nothing so I decided to forgo my natural tendency to try to make friends with animals that prefer to be left alone. I also saw a big puffer fish, and Bill found a pretty large lion fish. The lion fish are beautiful but they are invasive in the Caribbean, which apparently causes problem for the native fish. At lunch, we met a couple who had hunted some during their dive this morning and the resort was cooking the fish they speared. They said the fish were good.

On the way back from snorkeling, Bill paddled the kayak so I could swim back. That was a lot of fun! It’s not safe for me to swim in the open water with out him kayaking beside me because of the boat traffic. The boats would never see a snorkeler and it would be a very dangerous opportunity to get run over. It is safe to swim beside the kayak. Boats can easily see it and avoid it. It was a pretty long swim in open water, but it was a calm day, there were hardly any boats making waves, and I enjoyed the open water swim. I saw a small ray, several huge starfish and some crabs. I also found some sunglasses that someone lost. I had been wanting to snorkeling in some deeper areas, so I appreciated Bill’s willingness to kayak beside me. I’m a good swimmer but I’m slow compared to the kayak. I’m thinking about getting some small fins. I don’t generally like fins and I always turn them down when we snorkel with the group, but some small ones designed for the kind of activities I enjoy might be okay. I frog swim instead of flutter swimming (legs behind you kicking like scissors), and frog swimming seems harder with fins.

This afternoon, we both worked out at the gym. Bill did weights inside and I did a variety of exercises on the yoga deck. It was hot and humid and I loved it! It was a good workout. I was supposed to have Spanish class at 4:30 but my Spanish teacher was late and my internet connection was bad, so my friend, who does Spanish with me, and I decided to wait until next week when I’m back in the US.

We’ve talked to some people in the last couple of days who have told us what it’s really like to work here. The resorts pay people by the day, and their wage depends on how many guests are at the resort. They get paid very little for working very hard and they aren’t allowed take tips. All the staff seem happy and they smile all the time but most of them are really struggling to make ends meet. It’s gotten worse because of Covid, but it’s like this all the time.

In the future, Bill and I are going to look for more ethical ways to travel. In our other vacations, I felt like we were contributing to the local economy and local people. This time, we are making Couple’s Resorts even richer, and they are putting almost nothing back into the economy. The resorts dominate everything here. They snatch up the best land, they keep tourists on the resorts so small business owners can’t engage with the tourist economy, and I’m sure that they control the government too. People want to move up economically, but there are almost no opportunities here to do that. I really recommend that people find a different kind of vacation. Avoid Couples and Sandals. Bill and I hope that we can make some good recommendations in our future trips.

I have very little to report today and it looks like Bill did a long post, so I’m going to do a combination post again today. Bill went diving this morning. I had planned to go snorkeling but the weather wasn’t great for that. It was windy and choppy this morning and it looked like rain all afternoon. It never actually rained, so I could have gone, but since I have to swim or paddle board to my snorkel location, I decided not to chance it. Hopefully I can go tomorrow. I spent the morning in a hammock listening to a podcast, then we took out a catamaran for a little while. We swam in the pool this afternoon. Dinner was on the beach tonight then a fire show that was neat. Bill got good pictures of that. There was supposed to be a dance party after the fire show but no one showed up, which was disappointing.

Bill’s post and pretty good pictures are below.

Good day! 

We had to go get our covid tests done today, so we are about done here in Jamaica! Everyone met in the lobby, filled out paperwork then walked in a group to another building on property and waited for their room number to be called then went and got swabbed in a regular hotel room the set up for the procedure.

I did my final dive for a while this morning. It started deep and then came up. I may have been down below my limit some. I think the max was 75 feet though. They seem to do a lot of certifications here. It’s probably a money maker and then they can take the people out and get them to do more classes after seeing what the other people are doing. 
I’m probably going to do the lion fish hunting class at some point. 
There won’t be much opportunities for good diving back home but I will have to see what I can do. 

I’d like to say I am getting good at sailing but I don’t know that just going out and around the bay here is very difficult. The little catamarans aren’t very technical and the idea is pretty easy. Practice is another, I was able pick some places I wanted to see if I could get to and back from and I was able to do that. 

I tried to get a better picture of Emily doing the knee boarding but I was late finishing up my dive log and was waiting on my instructor because I wanted to get him a video of him getting a lion fish. I have to do it in the morning. 

The hotel did a beach party for dinner tonight. Essentially they took the main dining option and moved it outside on the beach. It was a really nice evening for it. There was a nice breeze and it hadn’t rained. 

After dinner we walked on the beach, we even did a pass through the nude beach. Nobody was out and it was dark so nobody noticed that we still had clothes on. 

They did a fire show at nine that we went down and watched, it was neat to see. They did a good job entertaining the crowd, though I’m sure they are used to bigger crowds. 

The resort has a beach dance party going on with about four people dancing and a few watching. I wonder if all the 10 pm entertainment has the same turn out? 

Friday is our last full day in Jamaica. We will be back in the states Saturday. We don’t have to leave too early so that’s nice.

Howdy Folks!! 
So we have been trapped by the resort vacation package. Sean-Pierre of the Jamaican tourist Board used that terminology and said it is a possibility with resorts like Couples. One of the nice thing about Couples Negril is the scuba is included. I’ve done two more dives this morning and a night dive. 
Sean-Pierre is the man that reminds me of Serge in Beverly Hills Cop, he has such a love for Jamaica, traveling and doing fun things. He scuba dove with me yesterday some and he was trying out the skiing before Emily and I did the kneeboarding. He shared some scotch bonnet pepper with me at lunch he had acquired, it’s used a lot here in Jamaica. 
The resort traps you by offering activities that are free and the other excursions are a bit expensive. They don’t make a lot on regular scuba because it’s included but, I bet they make up for it with classes for certification. It does make it easy to stay on property and get your money’s worth. 
I do like being able to get a small catamaran and just go sailing. I think that they are fun and with practice it would be more fun. The snorkel trips are too short they should let you be in the water longer. 
It’s nice that they will teach you how to do all the water sports and then you can just do them. If you were looking for a place to learn a resort vacation to Couples Negril would be good. I’m not sure about value just yet, that’s still to be determined. I am getting some dives in though! 
I do think that resort vacations would be fun with a group of like minded people who wanted to share some of the experiences together and some things on their own. 
The resort does a lot of loud music late at night for us. We don’t get into the party scene and getting up early to dive those things just don’t go well together. It’s been good to have met some people and have the interactions. Sean-Pierre cheered Emily on when she was doing her kneeboarding. Those things would be fun to share with friends. 

So my first dive was with a group that all was able to go deeper than I am currently rated. I’m supposed to be going down to a max of 60 feet or 18 meters for those who like metric. They were going down to around 100 feet. I sort of drifted to about 80 once before I noticed how far down I was. I was able to hang out between 60-70 feet though for most of the time they were doing their thing. They got to swim through a sunken tug boat and there were two people that were doing some skills things for their advanced certification. After that they came up a bit and swam around a reef that was about 80 feet and I just was above them, it worked out okay, I spotted 3 lion fish though I think they only got two. There was a kid learning and he missed the last one and nobody tried again because we were going to do our safety stop. He missed one of the others but the guide got it. 
A safety stop is where you go up to 15 feet and hang out for a very long three minutes trying to stay between 20 and 15. The instructors all just stop wherever they are and they don’t move up or down. I have a lot of buoyancy practice to do.  

On my second dive we went to 50 feet and I spotted another lion fish for the hunters/ fishermen and woman. It was a mom, dad and son outfit. I may have to give that a try sometime. You see a lot of fish and corals. There was a bunch of lobsters hanging out under a shelf. 

We just lounged and relaxed for a bit after lunch. I did get a t-shirt from the resort related to diving. 

We had dinner at the grill, the chef did a better job on our burger than the last one did. They were really good. After we had eaten Sally and Sean/Shawn (not Sean-Pierre) who have been diving with me (he actually took class with me) came and sat with us and chatted. They’ve been dating 8 months and seem to enjoy traveling. Sally has done quite a bit. Sean is diabetic, he has an insulin pump, there is another guy that has one that does scuba in case anyone wondered if they could. They live in Austin, Texas. He works for a start up and she teaches at the community college. 

This evening Emily and I had night dives. Emily went snorkeling while I went scuba diving. Sally and Sean both were there as well. 

The night dive was interesting and less intense than I expected. I did see a lot of crabs but not much was different from the daytime. The dive sight was a new one for me. It was 50 feet down and there was an area that was like a cliff or wall of coral. I would like to see it during the day. I don’t know how different it would look but I would get to see it all at once and not just what the flashlight shows. 

I’m going to squeeze in one more dive tomorrow morning and then we have to get our covid test for our return trip home. Sadly that means we are nearing the end of vacation. I was already only planning on doing one more since I haven’t been spending as much time with Emily since they don’t bring the snorkelers to the same places. A lot of the dive sights are just out in open water and is rough on top. 

I will get some pictures uploaded and sent to Emily she can post when she gets time.

I had a pretty fun day but I’m completely wiped out! Bill went diving again this morning and he’s working on a post. I was wrong about about the other beaches not having security guards, and I got kicked off a beach that I needed to cross to snorkel this morning. That was very frustrating, but I was not deterred! I got a paddle board from the resort and bypassed the beaches to get to my snorkeling location. I found a perfect little cove not connected to a resort where I parked my paddle board and I spent the rest of the morning snorkeling. It was my best snorkeling trip here. The location was good and I was on my own so no time limit and no life jacket. I saw lots of neat stuff. The wind had really picked up on the way back, which made paddle boarding rough.

I just got back from a nighttime snorkel trip. Bill did a night dive. I saw a couple of squid, some sea slugs, and an octopus. I missed the octopus last time so I was really excited see one this time. It was awesome! I asked if I could borrow a flashlight from the resort so I could go night snorkeling on my own, but the dive people wouldn’t give me one. I don’t think they were super excited that I went snorkeling alone earlier today.

I got to meet some of Bills new dive friends for dinner before we all went out on the water. He met a couple from Texas. Sally is a GIS instructor (degree in hydrology) at a community college in TX and Sean works in tech. She travels a lot and has been certified to dive for a couple of years and Sean has decided to do the same thing. They seem nice and we enjoyed talking to them. I also went snorkeling tonight with a couple from Oxford, Mississippi. They were super friendly. They also got certified to dive today, but decided to snorkel tonight. They said I wouldn’t recognize Oxford. It’s grown enormously in the last 10 years. When school is in session, it has a population of 60,000. I think it was only around 20,000 when I was there.

I’m out of energy and that’s all I’ve got for tonight!

After my first dive today I was done with my certification other than turning in my tests and filling out some paperwork! I have a temporary card and have already logged my first dive after my certification. I have a log book now and I will have to keep track of my dives. 
My first dive was to 60 feet deep and the second was to 50. You always have to do your deepest first if doing consecutive dives in a day and there is a chart you have to use that tells you how long you can stay under and stay safe. 
Our instructor took the opportunity to take out a couple lion fish, he got a really big one that everyone else was impressed by. I’m not sure what the max size is. 
Down deep there really wasn’t much extra to see, I think that I seen more on the shallower dives yesterday. 
After I got back and had lunch I went and turned in my test. I missed a few, one was from miss reading. I should have a real card when I get back home. 

After getting my scuba stuff done we didn’t have much time left before our catamaran trip. It took us past the push cart restaurant and Rick’s cafe but no stop. Rick’s is famous for having a cliff in which you can jump from. We would like to do that but it’s a whole other trip. We will find somewhere else to do that. We did stop off and swim into some cave, I was hoping that it would be a through cave and come out somewhere but it was a dead-end so I didn’t go too far in, Emily went all the way. She did come out before everyone else and we were able to get back to the boat and do the slide a few time and that was fun. 

The cruise was nice on the way out it rained but on the way back if was very nice! 

It was a busy day but it seems like a short post. I do have some thoughts about resorts and this type of vacation that I will save for another night. I need to get some space freed up on the underwater camera! 

We had a pretty active day today. Bill did two dives this morning and finished up his scuba certification. I took the boat out to snorkel while he was diving, then I came back and snorkeled on my own. That was a better experience. We are on a bay with resorts all around, but no one is paying attention to whether you are on your resort’s beach. There is a beach on the other side of the bay near some rocks with much better snorkeling options, so I crashed their beach and saw some really neat stuff. As long as I stay close to the rocks to avoid boat traffic, I can snorkel outside the designated swimming areas. I saw some starfish in various colors, a sea mollusk of some variety, some crabs, lots of different fish and coral. I’m pretty sure a lot of the fish glow in the dark. I wish I had my own flash light. I have to pay $35 to night snorkel. If I had my own flash light, I could go on my own whenever I wanted for free and stay longer. I’m buying one as soon as I get home.

The water was also full of these clear gelatinous things. I’ve seen them before but there were billions of them in the water today. I wasn’t sure they were alive because they don’t seem to have internal organs, but I looked them up and I think they are salps – jellyfish-like animal that filter feed. Some of the fish were particularly friendly today and swam in an school all around me like I was part of their group. I forgot to bring them a cookie.

This afternoon, we went on a catamaran cruise. We’ve taken out small ones on our own, but this was a big one for a large group of people. When we started, it was raining and dreary and I was concerned that it would be a long three hours, but it turned out to be really fun. We swam into a cave, which was okay. Bill and I made the fortunate decision to go back to the boat to take advantage of the slide before everyone else got back. Boat slides are a lot of fun! We got to slide several times before the rest of the group made it back. Most other people only got to go once. The water was deep enough to dive off the back of the boat and that was fun too.

The boat trip back to the hotel was lovely! The rain and clouds cleared, it was a beautiful evening to be on a boat and the water was so clear that we could see starfish on the ocean floor. It was really a perfect evening to be on a boat.

The resort where we are staying is an adults-only resort. I assumed that all of the resorts in the area were adults-only. There are guys walking up and down the beach constantly offering people weed. I discovered today that the beach right next to the nude beach is a “kid-friendly” beach. There is no barrier and only a small sign separating the two beaches. When I was coming back from snorkeling, there was an 11 year old girl playing in the water next to some naked old people. This is a weird place.

I have almost completed everything for my Open Water Scuba certification. I have a final dive tomorrow morning to do and turn in all my book work. Hopefully I will pass! I’m guessing they pass everyone who doesn’t end up as fish food. 
We did stuff in the pool first which was a lot like doing the discover scuba class, I recommend doing those especially if you are at an all-inclusive that has a PADI shop and scuba is included. Sometimes it’s not. After the pool we went out into the ocean to do the skills there. We did a two tank dive there so technically they count us as having done 3 dives today, but I only went out once. We had to switch tanks which meant we got out of the water did the swap and got right back in. I should have brought my little camera, I seen one puffer fish and five lion fish.  I think that Richard or English as his Jamaican friends call him for some reason, would have liked to been spearfishing. He only gave the explanation that if you are Jamaican then you have a nickname as well as a regular name. He also has a few more variants on Richard as well.  He was a good instructor and was knowledgeable. 
I’m excited about get my certification card! I will need to start logging my dives and I will probably have to do some specialty classes as well. Maybe I will do the lion fish hunter class. I hear they are tasty and since they are invasive they need removed from the reef here. 

There was one other student in my class, he had a few problems but he had never done any scuba in the past. 

There is a fair amount of people who come here for diving. The all-inclusive with diving is a cheap way to do it. There is more places to dive here for scuba than for just snorkeling. 

Without rain we ended up having a day with more outside time which was nice. We do sit on the balcony or in the lobby’s swinging chairs when it rains but there’s also more inside time. That’s usually a good time for getting posts started, today I’m behind and Emily will have to post it Tuesday. She went to bed early. 

While we waited to kneeboard we sat and talked with a guy who lives in Chicago as a travel agent, he covers the Midwest. He was interesting. He reminded me of Serge from the Beverly Hills Cop movies, the way he talked a some of the mannerisms. He represents Jamaica or works with their tourism board. He helped get the nonstop flight to and from St. Louis that flys Saturday and Sunday, we will get to use that for our return. He was excited when Emily told him that we fly out of there. He also talked about resort vacations and that they tend to trap you on the property. 
He tried skiing, he got up once for a short time before face planting. I think next time he will knee board, he cheered us on when Emily and I took our turns. 
He told us that Sandals is higher end than Couples and that they offer more island options. He wasn’t able to give us a must do next place to go. He had some good information though.  

I think Emily was able to get up and strapped in faster than me on the kneeboard. I was able to get up though and then move back and forth over the wake, maybe in a few more I could do some jumps off the wake! We will have to see what all we have time for. Ten days seems like a long time but then the next thing you know it’s over. 

The resort does some special dining nights here that change the flow and times for dining. I think that I like having a constant option, same bat time same bat location (this is a TV show reference – does anyone recognize it?) and just mix up the offerings. Three of the places they do made to order and it flows like a restaurant. Not a fast restaurant. One of those three moves the location where you sit to a deck with a canopy roof and curtains for when it blows rain, by the ocean which is nice. The rest the time they call it a grill and will feed you in your swimsuit inside a more permanent structure though it has no doors or windows. Tonight was one of those special nights and they made our normal dining area into made to order only and they try to make it a dining experience. I like the buffet type option with the carving station and made to order station. They also used one restaurant to do a dinner for returning guests, one was closed and the asian one had the same menu as last night. I found it to be an odd choice mostly because I didn’t like it. 

There really is a wide range of ages here. I seen a old guy with a walker this morning and there are several couples that are probably close to 18. 

I need to get up early tomorrow and finish up my dive. Hopefully I can get some good pictures during my dive! 
Emily will have some from today to add to this post.