Now comes the storm… yep, the storm that knocked out the power! We had been up since 7am… flew to another country…. rode on the wrong side of the road in a bus on a two lane road for two hours… sweated in not the nicest places… drank some Red Stripes and a Dirty Banana, and now I can’t fix myself before heading to Sea Star! Oh well… who gives a damn! Not me!!!!
Gary and I exit Catcha and head down Sea Star lane. Honestly, we were a little concerned. We just don’t see roads like that here in SC. Or better yet, we certainly wouldn’t walk down them! I assured him we would be fine, but I can tell you we walked a little faster than normal! We got to Sea Star. The place was just awesome. The first person I see is GerryG. I called his name, and I know he was thinking “who the hell is this!?” I told him who I was, and whether he knew me or not, I don’t know, but he hugged me like he did. My first boardie contact! Hehehe…
We are seated up front. Gary orders a bucket of beer, and I see two others I recognize, or so I think. Poor Gary, he never got on the board, so all I could do was try to tell him. I just left him sitting there…. ran up to this woman and said “Are you Ma***e?” Bless her, she looked at me quizzically and said “Yes.” I said “I’m Steph!” Another boardie “I’ve known you my whole life” hug! Bliss… pure bliss!
I met some amazing people on this trip, and I’ll just say that even though it was my first night I didn’t think that my trip could get any better. I was so happy to have finally met M & G Montreal! A little note about how awesome the ‘M’ part of this duo is….A few weeks before during a webcast she had offered to let us ride with her from the airport because they were going to be in MoBay picking up their daughter, and had also offered to meet us up the street at Catcha for our first walk down Sea Star lane. I declined the ride because her daughter was arriving about 2 hours after us, and I just wanted to get to Negril. She offered without even knowing me personally…. just the kind of person she is! The kind of person most everyone seems to be on this board, or my new Facebook
M & G and us are chatting and she points over to two folks with a camera and a couple of computers… Did it hit me who they were? Hell no! She says “That’s Rob and Lisa over there.” Really, we just saw them at Catcha. My Gary says… “I thought that was him!” I gave him my best WTF look because he never mentioned it to me, and I asked him how he knew. I had apparently shown him ONE picture of Rob a while back and he recognized him from that picture! I’m not good with that kind of stuff, so I literally had no idea! We were sitting across from them at Ivan’s… who knew… not me! Duh! So I run to Lisa, give her a little hug, and tell her who I am! When she realizes WHO I AM she said she needed a bigger hug! Another great boardie hug!
As the night went on, Gary and I were realized that we were definitely in our comfort zone. M & G made sure of that…. These guys truly made our first night in Negril unbelievably memorable!
I had many favorite moments, but one that I adored was when I was dancing on the floor in my most finest of Reggae rhythms! I go to sit down, and one of the Sea Star waitresses grabbed me and said “One more dance. You’ve got moves!” hehehehe… Okay… You don’t have to twist my arm. Flattery will get you everywhere.
So the night was grand. The food spectacular… my first taste of Rice and Beans…. OMG I love Rice and Beans! The drummers, Stephen, his sister singing (I can’t remember her name), the old guy that danced the ENTIRE time while toking on his ganga, the laughing, the girl in her yellow dress who had a coming to Jesus when the drummers started, and meeting people I can’t remember…. Just everything! Pure bliss… yep it was! M & G told me I had caught it quick… Jamaica Fever! I did too, and I can’t wait to return!
My first boardie contact... GerryG
Our dinner at Sea Star... It was a spectacular time!
The dancer in what I thought was a beautiful pose.
I have some wonderful pictures, and it is so hard to choose what to put up here.
