log entry #006

{Jamaica}

Spearfishing + the Rio Grand

Of course we want to go spearfishing.

Life in Jamaica is a wonderful thing. If you’re from New England like us, having people be so friendly is sometimes unsettling. We were working at a resort and made good friends with some of the staff running the excursions, as one does. When one of them asked if we wanted to go spearfishing, we definitely were not going to say no.

The directions were to drive back toward Ocho Rios and park across the street from the airport. “But there’s no parking there” we said. “You’ll see us” he assured us. We parked in a ditch, walked down some semblance of a staircase, and before us lay the crystalline waters of the caribbean lapping lazily over bits of coral and onto the embankment where we got ourselves prepared.

The resourcefulness of others never ceases to amaze us. Their spearfishing guns were made of inner tubes and had recycled forks used as triggering mechanisms. They were beautiful, rudimentary pieces of equipment. And they worked without fail.

That’s a big machete.

We’d decided to have a rafting trip setup for us on the Rio Grande (or Granda River), which runs from up near Moore Town and heads all the way out to St. Margaret’s Bay where it meets the waters of the Caribbean. We had an opportunity to have a riverside lunch set up for us as well. We opted in, brought some cash, and were promised a wonderful guided rafting trip down the river with a pitstop for a homemade lunch just for us.

Everything started out grand. The murky river was rather lazy, our guide was a mellow-as-ever family man, and the bamboo raft had built-in cupholders. We snapped way too many pictures, took dips in the river to cool off, and soaked in the lush greenery along the river as our guide poled us along. Eventually we were looking forward to lunch. Unfortunately, that never happened. Ask us about the guy with the machete sometime.

It’s a great way to spend an afternoon. You can bring some Red Stripe (or just buy a couple from the locals selling them at the top of the river), have yourself a smoke if you’re into that, and work on your tan all while having a guide that you can chat with and ask all the questions you want. We’d definitely go back. Hopefully the machete guy’s not there anymore, though, so we can enjoy that lunch.

If you have time, make sure you check out Boston Bay for the jerk chicken and surfing, get yourself some coconut jelly at a roadside stand, and find a waterfall. Send us a postcard.

-giants.