Panama Canal Cruise: Day 9: Ocho Rios, Jamaica

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Limon, Costa Rica to Ocho Rios, Jamaica = 655 nautical miles
Docked in Ocho Rios at 09:09am
Temperature 86F degrees
Departed 16:04pm

DECEMBER 8th
Our originally scheduled stop was Montego Bay but while traveling the ship got permission to port in Ocho Rios instead....that put us 90 minutes closer to our tour excursions. All in all, a good thing!

Our excursion here was the Chukka Dune Buggy Safari. We had done it in Cabo on our honeymoon but that was dry and dusty. No telling what this one would be like.

Stu woke up early...I think it was excitement...and snapped a few sunrise photos. The sun rose quickly showing some interesting cloud formations.

Jamaica is as beautiful as everyone says it is...we spent some time watching the hookup to shore. Quite a procedure!

Our ride to the White River Valley was interesting...up a very narrow, very steep winding mountain road. We bounced along, trying to not look down. LOL! There were folks going river tubing as well as some doing a flower tour, all departing from the same location.

We were quickly signed up and herded over to the dune buggies. Turns out they were very nice and almost new Polaris RZR 800 buggies. Sweet! Helmets were a different issue, lots of mediums and larges but no small or x-small nor x-large. We made do...

After a couple of trial laps around the yard, we took off. There were four tour buggies and two staff buggies. We quickly realized that this was not Mexico. The fact that it had been raining off & on all morning didn't help. Yup, mud galore! For some reason I seemed to get the most of it as you can see in the pics.

It was a blast though, I laughed the entire time...the Razor rode extremely well, heading over the rocks with ease. We stopped midway for some freshly cut oranges, straight from the trees. We all laughed at the mud and then continued up the mountain. When we got to the top, what a view! A short water break with a few laughs provided by the staff guides. We were all having a good time.

Now it was time to head back down...more fun, more mud! LOL! We went a different route and stopped for a bathroom break at a park on the river. Lots of photo ops there...posting a few but you can see them all in our SmugMug album.

After we parked the buggies we had time to wander the grounds and get something cold to drink. Stu tried to get a Red Stripe beer, a Jamaican beer, but they didn't have any. What's up with that? LOL! I wandered around, taking photos of the flowers. Gorgeous!!

The vans arrived to take us back to the ship, dropping those off in town that wanted to shop first. We saw the Harley-Davidson dealer there so we got off in town. I got a lot of looks and questions about my mud! We eventually walked back to the sip, declining offers of "smoke". Two nice policemen on the bicycles stopped to pose for a photo opp and we found a good shot of the ship as well.