San San Beach
on George Hamilton (Jamaica), 03/Oct/2011 02:26, 34 days ago
Here we are before the coaster trip starting at Odeon Street next to the Half Way Tree JUTC bus terminal - Erin and Del (blue shirt) two rows from the back, and Kim, Samar and Julia in the back row.Wendy was out taking photos on the sidewalk and appears in the distance in the second photo. Hint - she is the only one in this photo who might get sun burned on a sunny day.Wendy suggested we make a quick day trip to San San Beach using a local means of transport. This necessitated a coaster to Port Antonio followed by a route taxi for the 10 minutes remaining past Port Antonio to get to San San beach.I quite often jump to conclusions and I did this a lot today. Often the vehicles we were in at the time was crammed to the rafters and slowed down on the road. I felt that this would be good to ease the load on the suspension, but all that happened was that one or two more passengers would be loaded up.The fee to get onto the private beach ended up being $400J each after a bit of negotiation. This is about half the price you would pay for a movie ticket in Canada.The restaurant building was not operating but the attendants went off and brought lunch to those of us who ordered from somewhere else at a bit of a markup price. If you go to San San on a budget it's best to bring your own food with you.The San San people were very helpful and arranged local taxis to pick us up when we discovered after 3 o'clock that the coaster buses back to Kingston stopped running at 5PM from Port Antonio. We worried that we could not guarantee that any passing route taxi would have enough room for seven extra passengers. That was an unnecessary worry because looking back any route taxi worth the name would have fitted us all in, whatever might have to be done.Here is a photo of the water. My photo with swimmers was blurry so did not make the cut. Talking about cuts, it's good to be in safe Jamaica. Del reported that three little fish were nibbling at his toes which sounds a better deal than Paul Hine's anecdote from Guyana where a piranha reputedly bit off a bather's toe. The locals advised that person there was no blood in the water that it was OK to swim among piranhas.Other fishy but non-piranha news from San San was that Wendy reported that when she went snorkeling and saw large striped fish and blue fish over near the reef on the west side of bay.At the end of the day one of the San San employees took a group photo. The group from left to right George, Erin, Del, Wendy, Julia, Samar and Kim.The island behind the group is Monkey Island. The monkeys apparently weren't Jamaican ones and were released there by a resident who lived on shore close to the island. The monkeys are no longer there.On the way back towards Port Antonio we passed an interesting looking large procession with dancers followed by a band.This was actually a funeral procession as a hearse followed close behind them attested. It makes you think, some days one person's mind is on the beach while for another's is thinking of a funeral.Here is some sundry information to close off.1) There are many nearby beaches and attractions with the Blue Lagoon being just round the corner to the east, and Frenchman's Cove within 10 minutes walking distance to the west in the Port Antonio direction.2) If four or more of you are going it might be cheaper to share the cost of a rental car to get more flexibility, but then you would miss the local flavor that a coaster can provide more authentically than a Toyota Yaris. The Grande River rafters do not actively market to coaster buses when you stop at the Grand River bridge with its traffic light system.Their business may be affected soon when the new larger bridge is completed and traffic no longer needs to slow down or stop.