Everyone's smiling

After only a few hours in Jamaica it's obvious why all the locals are constantly laughing, playing pranks on each other and smiling from ear to ear.
It's beautiful, blazing sunshine at 9am and a infectious chilled out, laid back vibe.



Our private beach

On our first dip in the sea we meet Skinny Man. A local who rides around the waves on a surfboard, with paddles, selling stuff to tourists. By 'stuff' I don't mean the usual tourist souvenirs sunglasses, hats, CDs - more like weed, hash, cocaine etc.
He sells carved wooden souvenirs too, in a bid to fool the middle aged, conservative Americans.
We've already spotted a number of guests reading the bible on the beach or other religious books such as "God will teach you to forgive."
Despite the naughtiness of Skinny's 'souvenirs' he's cool, and full of banter. He supports Man U and spends 8 hours every day in the sea. He has no front teeth. He also tells blatant lies, we worked this out quickly. But he's good comedy value.



Skinny Man doing his thing

We spent the whole day sunbathing, swimming and snorkeling. Our second butler Ellis (forgot to mention we have two butlers now, I know, I know! Ellis and H-bomb do 1\2 day shifts each) dropped off a cool box of beers to us on our sun loungers, around noon. He later brought cocktails and snacks too. It's safe to say I love this place. 

Us relaxing on a swing with Dirty Banana cocktails and Red Stripe

It still feels really weird having someone do everything for us. However, Ellis and H-Bomb are both really (genuinely) happy and keep telling us how much they love their job - so we try and stop being so typically English and polite.


Our second butler Ellis, the super smiley dude...

There's an American couple next to us on the beach who are ordering the world off their butler. I'm surprised they're not using him as a footstool.
There's and abundance of Americans at the resort. They're loud, brash, self involved and pretty intolerable. Their whiny, elongated twang is as annoying as the peacock who's woken us up both mornings so far at 5.30am with his mating call and general racket.


one of the many peacocks at the resort