PARADISE BOUND, PART II

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY THE SOMERS RECORD ( 06-03-21)- Please remember small business in your town during this coronavirus pandemic

     Jamaica properties are running at 40 percent capacity right now, a figure that is sure to rise as the country continues to dose up. But after four days we we had exhausted the available supply of restaurants so we traveled on to our next destination, Jewel resort at Runaway Bay. By now we knew what to say: "Wa gwaan" (how ya doin'?), and you say, "Mi deh yah" (I'm here, I'm good).

     SCUBA diving lessons were included at the all-inclusive water sports area, but I don't see myself poking around 100-feet below sea level looking for inhospitable vertabrates. I'm not really the adventurous type- if it were up to me to explore the seven seas, the Earth would still be flat and it would be a whole lot easier to get around on a bicycle.

     Instead, we bribed ourselves a couple of masks and snorkels, and swam the reef near the beach. If you see something underwater that looks like a purple porcupine, it's a sea urchin, so avoid it because its spines are slightly venomous. If you step on one and have a bad reaction, an old wives tale has the number one remedy, but I can't tell you what it is here (actually, I just told you).

     We saw a flatfish just sitting there on the bottom, blending into his surroundings. He looked like he was floundering, but that's kind of a compliment to a flatfish. It's a little creepy to see him looking at you from both eyes on one side of his head, but at least his heart was in the right place.

     Back on shore we joined the resort's doubles tournament, and were awarded a bottle of Kingston 62 rum as the winners, when it was determined that we were the only two people foolish enough to show up and play tennis in the 97-degree sun.

     At night the DJ came out and spun some songs to the dolled-up, mask-free, sun-burned crowd. It was the closest whiff I've had of a live bar in quite some time, and it felt good. The music filled up the room and the laser lights flitted deep into every corner. All I could think of was letting a box of cats loose in the place and then running for the hills. I was getting my mojo back. By the time 11:30 rolled around I could barely keep my eyes open. Maybe it was all that sun, or maybe I was just out of practice.

     The next day there was a letter under our door, and I knew the end of our vacation was approaching because it was time for our return flight covid test. The suspense of sweating out the result was killing me, like waiting for the responses to my college application letters. But when they finally handed me the envelope, the outcome was a whole lot better. 

     Our last evening we joined a tour to the "Luminous Lagoon," which is a rare brackish water habitat to millions of dinoflagellates, micro-organisms that light up when disturbed, in a natural light show of bioluminescence. My wife told me to snap some photos while she swam around and bioluminesced with them, but I said no way, I'll go first. Once she's had her organism, you think she'd be interested in mine? All I had to do was figure out how to disturb them. I played some AC/DC real loud, sang two verses of the "Kars for Kids" jingle, made a few cracks about their moms, but it turns out all you have to do is swim around with them, and it's annoying enough.

     All too soon it was time to wind up our vacation and fly back to Earth. I'm going to miss swim-up bars, good coffee roughly the consistency of 10W-30 motor oil, trees that look like cell phone towers that look like trees and pretending to use hand sanitizer. Eight days of fun in the sun was perfect, but it wouldn't have mattered where we went. The important thing is that we went. We're rounding the home stretch of finally leaving our homes. Get vaccinated. Join life.