adventures of a caribbean chicken

10 days of playa part-ay in paradise...
Yes, I was super excited!
10 days, in the brilliant caribbean sunshine, on white sands, swimming in turquiose seas with stingrays, drinking rum-cokes at every sunset... what could go wrong?? Idyllic, no??

Ideal, my ass.
Here's the low-down...

Day One;

car keys- check
house keys- check
wallet- check
dollars- check
credit cards- check
camera- check
clothing (on and off body)- check
liver still intact- check

Wow, i was off to a good start!

The first coupla days were spent gearing up for xmas- shop shop shop, decorate tree, wrap presents, make food (attempt to create salad extrodinaire) for 10 poeple, and then we cracked open the first bottle of champers and I truly feel things went downhill from this point on!!



But first, I received my FIRST xmas present!! I had bought myself a baby RAV which got delivered the first day of my hols! It's a gorgeous (beat up), blue (rusty) 2-door Rav (definitely an Island car) which i LOVE!! No more scooter incidents!!!!!!!!!





And, yes, i do see the irony in buying a Toyota as my first car (sorry DAD!!!!).












Christmas Eve Day was a day trip to Rum Point (opposite point of island). The entire Bentzie family has now relocated to the island so there was 8 of us falling all over the place in their tiny house, so come xmas eve day, it was time for some boat trippin'.

We packed some coolers full of beers, borrowd a mate's boat (is a fancy fishing boat so big enough for the bentzie mob and dupree) and headed across the North Sound to rum point.

On the way, we stopped off at StingRay city to play with the sting rays.















Damn, these things can bite! Apparently since 'The Incident' with the killer stingray, not many tourists opt to go so now they mob the people for food. We all came back with love bites as they know that you have squid for them so they suck on to your legs and arms... actually they are quite charming little buggers.



Then it was off to the reef for some snorkelling and finally Rum Point for Pina Coladas. I have some stunning photos of Rum Point area (feels like you've just landed on a beach from Pirates of Caribbean and that Johnny Depp is about to swagger down the beach), but unfortunately my camera got checked OFF my list a couple of days later so those photos are gonners.

Xmas eve was the BIG Christmas dinner and get together. 10 people, 10 bottles of champers, 5 courses of food. A good night.
Xmas day- the usual frenzy of opening xmas presents, eating too many chocolates and gorging on more champagne. Yummy. The most strenuous thing we did on xmas day was take a wander down the beach and laugh at all the drunnken tourists, before we headed back to Tamarind Bay for Pimms and a game of 30-seconds (by far the xmas pressie with the most kudos!!).

Boxing day: the usual shite. Different location. More turkey, more champers, more xmas crackers, more hangover. This time, I headed over to my bosses house in Prospect for their annual Boxing day party. Apparently it is one of the most sought-out parties to be invited to. The Browns are sort of legends on the island. Not sure how I cracked the nod?? Never mind, there was an open bar and free champers. all good.

So as you can see, the photos are no longer... they are now sitting with some dodgy Jamaican in the back of his shack. well, i hope they keep him warm at night. what comes around, goes around. more about that later.

the rest of the week was spent on the beach during the day- wakeboarding, snorkelling- the usual. and the evenings were spent tasting the fine array of caribbean rums that this island contains. thankfully i only had one rough morning where i had a very 'sore' 7km run back to one of the clubs to retrieve my vehicle!! the rest of the time, i was well-behaved!!

but then, the checklist starts to dwindle..
i had decided on a quiet evening. that's how all the best evening start don't they??
well, somewhere, things started to go pear shaped. we had started at a bar called hammerheads (a rather 'rough' place in a great location in the harbour, with really 'rough' rum). As the evening progressed, so did we and things started to get a little out of hand!! At some point in the evening (early hours of Saturday morning) we were walking home from a club and I had somehow got seperated from the crowd and there were just 2 of us trying to get to a friend's condo for a nightcap (it was 4 am and we had drank our bodyweight in booze, but the party must go on!!) and for some reason we found ourselves ina deserted field and thought the easiest way to get where we were going , was quite obviously, to to climb over a fence in the pitch darkness. I mean, c'mon. there was clearly no thought structure happening at all!

So over i go, and at the top of the fence my hand gets stuck on the barb wire and rips as I fall over the other side. Yummy.
But, it is amazing what a good anesthetic alcohol is. I was invincible. Unfortunately, the blood said otherwise. So we rushed my hand up the stairs and 2 of the guys bandaged it up pretty tight. I turned whiter than the saffers in london and was fed some coca cola and put to bed.
Unfortunately during the fracas, nobody noticed that my hand bag was left hanging on the fence.
And that was that.
Checklist OVER.

New Years Resolution: Drink No More Rum!

The next day I woke to the realisation that my bag was gone, my car was stranded in the middle of a sidewalk in GeorgeTown and my hand was throbbing!!
First stop was the police station to report the bag, then locksmith to break into my new car and change the ignition and create a whole new set of keys, and only then could I get to the hospital.
4 hours and 4 stitches (and a bucketful of cash later) i finally got home- 24 hours after leaving for that quiet drink...hmmmmm!

So this week has been a whole lot of admin-sorting: police station, banks, driving licensing dept etc etc. Love it.

New Years was a little quieter as I am now on some HECTIC antibiotics so things have toned down somewhat... Only somewhat...

New Years Resolution: Drink Less Rum!

The NY party was awesome tho- beach party at a place called Calico Jacks. I am going to hijack some photos from a friend and send them through...

My one-armed type-pecking is beginning to ache. so this the end of the All New Adventures of a CaribbeanChicken 2007.

Until the next one!

(New Years Resolution: Drink Only Good Rum!)