Marley and Ninja: Having Their Cake And Drinking It Too! Trip Report - April 2012

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Day 3, cont.

Now I am not going to spend too terribly much time on the Bellyflop challenge, for two reasons mainly. 1) You have already heard it, seen it, talked about it a million times already so what more can I add? And 2) This is/was Ninja’s big day so I am going to let him take the bulk of this description so stay tuned for that, and also for the debut of the now famous Bellyflop Remix video that he has made and will share with you all in his post…..get ready for it….it is truly EPIC!

So we arrived at the gates at Seastar and made our way to the pool, already on hand were Brasi, of course, Guirigay, Gerryg and Muzikdoc, maybe a couple of others also. We got situated and I and Brasi discussed the fundamentals of how we were going to handle the voting, the scorekeeping, and the entry fees, etc. As we were working out the logistics Ninja was busy trying to make contact with our “Man-in-the-box” Joe via our ipad. And simultaneously Chris, the owner of Seastar, had his staff setting up tables for the judges and making sure everyone had plenty to drink, etc. Wow, I can’t say enough about Chris and the staff at Seastar. For an event that was probably mostly just adlibbed and thrown together last minute, they made it look like a whole team had been planning for it for months! Amazing! And let’s not forget Brasi he had come fully equipped with everything he could think of as well. There were score cards and master score sheets and props and so on.

Then Patty arrived along with Kopper and Beachgirl66 and plus 1 and Beccajean. Patty also had put quite the effort into this event. She had made sashes for all of the judges to wear and they were blingy and fabulous as you would expect. After sashing us all she gave kopper specific instructions on how he would be documenting the event. “You are to take pictures of everyone’s flop” “You should also be videoing every moment, make sure you capture everything” LOL Kopper was walking around the place like a one-man newspaper reporter and photographer. It was so funny and perfect! Everywhere you looked there was a camera or video camera on you. If it wasn’t Kopper, it was Sweetie Pie equipped with her fancy camera, then later I spotted Negril Bill snapping photos, and towards the end I even saw a familiar (but yet to have met) face from the board, Katho, armed with her camera as well. This made me feel good because as the official scorekeeper and with Ninja as a flooper, I wasn’t able to take but very few pictures of the event!

Now the time had come, the place was starting to actually fill with people, some I knew and others I didn’t, but all spectators. It was awesome, even the staff had gathered, and some locals too, and even the guys who were busy building the new rooms off of the pool stopped to watch the crazy festivities. But how could you not? It was quite the event! Brasi made an announcement to the crowd and then offered up the very first Flop to get the show going. Everyone cheered. The judges gathered and I explained the scoring as Brasi and I had just agreed on and then he introduced the judging panel to the crowd. Then the event began. There were 3 rounds of flopping followed by the final Flop Off between the top 2 floppers. The 1st and 2nd round featured all of the floppers, Muzikdoc, drummerboy13, Gerryg123, Ninja, Booger, Sandie (aka Pooper), Guirigay and Jon. After 2 rounds, the top 4 (based on scores) moved on to the third round. The 3rd round consisted of Muzikdoc, Ninja, Booger and Guirigay. After the last round, the top 2 floppers with the overall highest scores moved on to the final round, they were Ninja and Guirigay. They both made one last final flop and the winner was then determined by audience applause. The winner was crowned (or should I say, sashed) and I am so proud to say that the title went to my husband, Ninja….I couldn’t be any prouder! And I will also say that every single flopper did a fabulous job. If I was to give my opinion I would have crowned Muzikdoc with the best form, drummerboy13 with the most unconventional flop, Gerryg with the scariest (I thought for sure he was going to hit his head on that first one), Ninja with the most creative and highest level of difficulty, Booger with the most X rated, Pooper with the funniest lead up, Guirigay with the best style and costume and overall most hilarious, and Jon with the most height. It was a GREAT time, and like I said before probably the most fun I have ever had in Negril! The winner was sashed, the runner up was too. We posed for photos and the prizes were awarded. Brasi had donated a $20 bar tab to the winner and Chris from Seastar had donated $100 gift certificate to Seastar Inn! WOW! Ninja decided to give the $20 bar tab to Guirigay for being such a great opponent and runner up and I took off toward the gift shop to spend my husband’s winnings (oh come on, you know that is the way it works LOL) But seriously, we did get the one thing I had been dying to get from Seastar, the famous hammock that Francine makes!!!

Thanks Brasi, and Chris and Seastar Inn, it was so much fun…..oh and with the entry fees from all who participated and the donations made by the spectators, etc. we raised $9100 Js to donate to the N.E.E.T. buy a brick program at Travelers! What an event! And so of course we decided to round up the crew and head down to Traveler’s to deliver the donation. We made some calls and paid some tabs and soon folks were piling into the vans and cars to head down to the beach…..

Some photos from the event, along with a video of the 1st round of the BBC 2012!