Before Departure:
Early this coming Sunday, just after sun up, I will once again be wiggling my toes in the cool morning sands of the ‘Seven Mile Beach’.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been to Negril, but I’ve be going there for many, many years. I’ll be staying for five weeks this time. My first visit was in the mid 70's and I’ve been dropping in – on and off - over the decades since then. Back in the day I never bothered to count the trips (and some of them I couldn’t remember, anyhow). My current streak extends back to 1998, when I got married on the beach, at sunset – (how’s that for cliché?).
That was me and my Bride, back in '98. See Booby Cay in the background? I have a serious thing for sunset in Negril. Since that trip we’ve been going every winter.
This trip, I’ll be solo for the first three days, then my buddy Fabs comes down. Fabs will be in Negril for a week, which will be the ‘guy’ part of the trip. (More on Fabs later). Then my wife comes down for the duration.
Even though I’ve been to Negril many times, I’m excited! I always am, but this upcoming trip should be interesting just because of the people who will be coming and going during the five weeks that I’ll be there. There’s Fabs, as I mentioned, plus a grand assortment of siblings with partners, relatives, good friends, and acquaintances of friends, several of whom are Newbies. I’m proud to say that I’ve introduced many of these people to Negril.
Add that crowd to the ‘Negril-ites’ that I’ve come to know, who will be there in Feb and – well, it should be interesting. It always is.
I used to dread bringing Newbies to Negril, but now I look forward to it. It forces me to do things; gets me out of my comfortable routines and helps me overcome the beach-gravity. With Newbies I do things that I wouldn’t do if it were not for them. With the Newbies, I get to see Negril anew again, through their experiences – like having kids and seeing the world through their eyes (I have two grown daughters whom I brought to Negril when they were teenagers – now THAT was a trip.)
I plan to share this trip with you on this board – in quasi-real time - which is something that I’ve never done before. You see – I love to write, but I’m currently between projects, so I’ve decided to write about this trip. (The truth is I’ll be using this trip report to feed my muse.)
So this is my ‘Teaser’. I’m not going to proclaim that ‘this will be the greatest trip report that Negril.com has ever seen!’, or ‘watch the count for this report hit 50K!’. Nah. Because I actually cannot see into the future – so I don’t know how this will spin out. But I’ll report what I see, my plans, what I do, what I hear, and what I think – all relatively unfiltered and from my own perspective; I’ll describe, I’ll rant, I’ll praise, I’ll question, I’ll laugh, and I’ll tell some stories and post some photos.
The header for this report is ‘AnD nOw FoR sOmEtHiNg CoMpLeTeLy DiFfErEnT’. I’ll do my best to live up to that billing.
Along the way I hope we’ll have some fun together.
