2021 RECAP

INTREPID TRAVELERS

Despite the promises made by the government to defeat this COVID pandemic it has raged on for yet another year, quelling much of our hope for distant shores. With variants of this deadly disease cropping up it was no wonder our travel was largely domestic, though we did manage a trip to Jamaica and then Janet traveled to England in October. The rest of our travels were in the United States. Ours is a vast country and we saw just a bit of it. 

Arizona

We drove down the Delmarva Peninsula to stay in Virginia Beach for a week. We drove to the New Jersey beach town of Sea Isle City to vacation for a week with our extended family. And, we flew to the Red Rock Country of Sedona, Arizona, taking a side trip out to the Grand Canyon one day.  

We wanted to do more and had planned to do more, and Lord knows we did our part to keep healthy; getting vaccinated as soon as possible and boosters as soon as they were available. Difficulty in traveling won out though and it was so much easier to stay in the United States. 

PROTOCOL SPEED BUMPS

Our lone international trip to Jamaica was relatively easy because of the Sandals Resort staff. This was our third time staying at a Sandals and we value the attention to detail they give their guests, which in this particular case was providing free COVID testing for the return and promising to put us up free of charge if we had to quarantine first. They even contacted us to ensure the paperwork required by Jamaica was properly filled out.

Seals Memorial,
Virginia Beach

A LONG AND WINDING ROAD.

Negotiating COVID protocol rules that have been changing weekly by oneself is a difficult task. We had wanted to travel to Malta and then to England, but discovered quickly the headaches of testing and quarantining for two separate countries. Plus, the normal flight that we take from Philadelphia to Manchester England had been cancelled by American Airlines forcing us to fly in and out of London, which was another whole set of logistical problems. So, we decided instead of Malta and England together, Janet was off to see the grandkids on her own. That way if she had to quarantine she had a place to stay for free. And, even traveling to England by herself was quite difficult because of the testing England required of her before and after her arrival. Without help from the English family members finding tests for her it would have been extremely difficult. 

Sandals Jamaica South Coast

YOU CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE

There's nothing more discouraging than finding a great deal and not being able to take advantage of it. We had found a half-price sail from Variety Cruises though the Seychelles, but then the Omicron variant from South Africa broke out. We had sailed with Variety in Costa Rica and Panama and knew it would have been a great experience, but that outbreak stopped us in our tracks. 

REBOUND YEAR?

So, 2021 was a long malingering crapshoot and there's no guarantee '22 will be any different. But, fingers crossed, we are planning plenty of international trips this year. We are traveling to the Canary Islands in April, Barbados in May, and Fiji in September. We'll keep you posted! 

Thanks for reading

love Janet and greg

© 2022 by Greg Dunaj  

SCUBA DIVING IN JAMAICA

FISHES AND LOBSTERS AND SEA CUCUMBERS... OH MY

Diving has become our most favored activity when we travel to a Sandals Resort, but because of COVID restrictions it almost did not happen on this trip to Jamaica. It wasn't until a week before our scheduled trip to Sandals South Coast in Whitehouse Jamaica that diving was finally allowed again. I had put in a lot of work and training during our last two visits to a Sandals in order to pass my PADI Open Water certification. I was finally able to just dive for the fun of it. We had already delayed this trip to Jamaica, my first to this island nation, for 6 months, hoping all the restrictions would finally relax, and luckily everything fell into place at the last minute. Timing IS everything.

DIVING IS EVERYTHING

Diving is an incredible sport which allows one to swim in the biodiverse world of coral reefs that teem with all sorts of fish and other critters. It’s a safe sport, especially with the dive teams at every Sandals watching over you. They are patient, attentive and helpful to all the divers on their excursions, from the novice divers (like us), to those trying to get certified, either for a resort certification or PADI Open Water certification. Once certified it is a cheap sport, all equipment is provided by Sandals except for an optional wetsuit that can be rented at a small price. We wore UV shirts which worked perfectly in the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea.

PADI DIVING INSTRUCTION 

We were looking forward to this our third trip to a Sandals, not just for the location, food or drinks, but for the diving. This was the first time I did not have to go through any “certification” tests. I had already done my testing and taken the last of my “check-out” dives when we were in The Bahamas. 

Certification can be an intense endeavor, there are a number of safety things you should know, like “am I running out of air,” but, that was all completed and on this trip to Sandals South Coast in Jamaica I could finally just get in the water, follow the divemaster and marvel at the beauty of the coral reefs. It would have been a huge disappointment had the COVID restrictions for diving not been lifted  

THE BACKBONE OF OUR EXISTENCE

Coral reefs only cover 1 percent of the world’s oceans, but 25% of the marine life live in the reefs. They are the backbone of our shores, absorbing most of the surge of waves preventing erosion of the shores and lessening the impact of storm surges and currents. The largest coral reef in the world is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, followed by Belize and then the Great Florida Reef which is the only coral reef in the United States.

Many of the dive sites at Sandals South Coast were just a few minutes off shore. Standing on the beach we could see waves breaking on the reefs. 

Diving is a “lazy-man’s” sport and once you get over the claustrophobia that some people experience and not fear the occasional reef sharks that ponder the return on investment in biting you and watching Moray Eels and spiny lobsters watching you from their coral reef crevices or seeing an occasional manta ray flit out from beneath the sand as you near it, and you relax and breathe easily through your regulator, the diving experience is incredibly beautiful. The reefs teem with fish and invertebrates and the living coral are majestic displays of nature in a biodiverse universe only seen from under the water.

Most of the dive spots in Jamaica are just a few minutes out from shore so it was possible to go on a two-tank dive, meaning a first dive around 40-45 minutes at around 60 feet depth and then another shorter and shallower dive, around 30 feet in depth after a surface interval, and still be back at 11:30 and in time for lunch.

GOING WITH THE FLOW

All our dives in Jamaica are “drift” dives which go with the current. This was a first for this novice diver with the Sandals resort. In Antigua and the Bahamas, the dive boats were anchored. We were taught to first swim against the current at the beginning of the dive, this way you’re not fighting the current on the way back and potentially running out of air… you see there is a pattern here.

COVID compliant Stringbean
and Me

Drift diving there really is no swimming. Fins aren’t really used to propel, but just for buoyancy control and we meandered behind the divemaster, Stringbean, who claimed to have over 7,000 dives, and who pointed out things we might have missed, like a Moray Eel giving us the evil eye, lobsters twitching from their coral crevices, a stingray, a flounder, and a docile pufferfish that didn’t seem to mind being petted gently. On the one day I didn’t dive, Janet’s Stringbean team saw a female dolphin and her young calf. On another day we saw something out of a horror film. Stretching out from a coral reef along the bottom was a Tiger Tail Sea Cucumber. This long tube-like creature anchors itself inside the coral reef and stretches out a good three feet to forage for food. Disturbed, the sea cucumber rapidly recoils, before slowly inching out again. Some cultures each sea cucumbers! UGH! 

Tiger Tail Sea Cucumber

The drift dives were quite relaxing. We simply went along trailing behind the divemaster until it was time to surface. On the deeper dives we always had to take a 3-minute safety stop at 15 feet below the surface to allow our bodies to acclimate with the surface pressure. On the anchored dives at the other resorts there was always a safety ladder to cling to, but on this drift dive we had to rely on our depth gauge or simply watch the divemaster. 

Happy Pufferfish

Once it was time to surface the divemaster would unfurl an inflatable surface buoy, we’d inflate our vest and bob on the surface chatting about what we’d seen and admiring the mountains of Jamaica and how the clouds were already gathering for the late afternoon storms until the dive boat would swing by to pick us up.

Sandals also has snorkeling adventures and sea kayaks, paddleboards and Hobie Cats for use on a first come basis. On our surface day before we flew home we took out a sea kayak. THAT was more work than the scuba diving!

Because of the expertise of the dive teams and the free equipment Sandals is going to be on our future list of travel destinations.

Thanks for reading

Love Janet and greg

© 2021 by Greg Dunaj