Negril Day Trip
Lucea and Margaritaville
Negril's 7 Mile Beach. This magical Caribbean paradise has been a part of me since my late teens. It was the destination of hippies and bohemians and anyone who just wanted to peacefully escape the quickly changing world we were trying to evaluate. It didn't hurt that it had the most far out beaches and an emerging culture that suited the times and people escaping to paradise.
​
The big resort beaches on Bloody Bay are relatively private and separated from 7 Mile Beach by a point that houses the "naughty bits" of Negril resorts, such as Hedonism. A clothing optional and morally questionable resort that boasts "they are the world’s most iconic adult playground where people visit from all over the world to live out their fantasies" and "...Expect to have unrestricted fun." You can see Booby Cay just off the point. It is a boat tour offered at the RIU Resorts. I wonder if you'll see any boobies?
I happily checked off a 2-part bucket list item with our day trip to Negril. No. 1 - Being in Jamaica and No. 2 - walking on 7 Mile Beach and into the turquoise waters of the Caribbean there.
​
​We hired Wayne Allen, who was recommended by our Guest Relations rep at the Lady Hamilton Lobby. His card says Wayne's Tours, but he often works out of Rocky's Tours. Best $100 we spent. He arrived shortly after 9am and he told us he was ours for as long as we wanted to be out and about. He was terrific and we highly recommend him. We told Wayne when we spoke to him from the Resort our intention was to go to 7 Mile Beach (Margaritaville) and Rick's Café. He understood that we'd like a little culture and history on our outing and he came through, to our delight. It's about a 45 minute drive from our Resort to Negril. As we drove into our host town of Lucea (pronounced Lucy), he showed us remnants of British residency and influence there dating back to the 1700's. It's truly amazing that there are structures that still remain standing throughout the Town. There is even a working clock in The Lucea Clock Tower installed in 1817.
​
Our first stop was Fort Charlotte. I couldn't begin to repeat some of the things Wayne told us so I found an excerpt from a website that says it perfectly. "Fort Charlotte was built in the mid 1700's by the British for the defence of the North, North-Westerly section of the Island. It was built during the reign of King George III of England and is named after his consort, Charlotte. The fort was built with a barrack capable of housing 50 men. The fort had 23 embrasures for 23 guns, 20 of which were mounted. During the Napoleonic Wars it was thought that the guns at the fort were insufficient to guard the harbour, so in 1807, three 24 pounders on traversing carriages were installed on the seaward side of the fort. The fort is built of rectangular cut stone and has several openings toward the sea. Inside the fort is the remains of the circular base for the rotation of guns which were placed there so that they could shoot from every possible angle. The Artillery Store still stands and is made of cut stone. It has buttresses and a gable ended roof. A section of the fort currently forms part of the Ruseas High School. In the early 20th century The Barracks became the educational center for the town and has now been transformed to become part of the Ruseas High School complex. In 1982 Ruseas High School was merged with the Hanover Secondary School and is still known as the Ruseas High School (Fort Charlotte) and open-air lessons took place inside the fort."​
Continuing on to Negril, we passed through a large green space like a small forest woodlot, minus the familiar trees we have at home. I asked Wayne what types of wildlife could be found here. He chuckled and said "we don't have wildlife - we have goats". That got us laughing and I told him about some of our wildlife and he was very interested and mentioned a few that he had heard about. He considered raccoons to be a beast of our forests. We corrected this misconception and expanded lol He was quite taken back when I told him about what frequents my yard and was very sure he would not like to meet up with a possum lol Yes, we have possums in Southern Ontario. They've been here for about 20 years.
We drove along Norman Manley Blvd., the address for the bigger, well known resorts we'd looked at in travel books and online. Honestly? most looked run down and in need of cosmetic fixes. Their attraction must be on the beach side of the hotels, because we really didn't see anything that impressed us from the road. I think by that time I'd already decided the Palladium had set a high bar and would be hard pressed to beat. I kept getting little views of the water and was getting excited to finally be here.
Wayne turned into Margaritaville and parked. This was to be our meeting place later. He went in with us to give us some info and suggestions on handling the vendors on the beach. He asked how much time we would like to spend here. The plan was to walk as much of the beach as my leg would allow, check out some of the permanent vendors and to swim in those beautiful, turquoise-blue waters. This was around 11 am. He let us know he had to return to Lucea for an appointment and would be a couple of hours so we arranged for him to meet us back at Margaritaville around 1:30. We'd return from our walk and had lunch as we waited for him. He showed up around 2. As I write this I could kick myself for not getting a photo of us together. Next time.
 |  |
|---|---|
 |  |
Margaritaville is a nice, large, open air bar/restaurant with a DJ/Activities booth and fun staff outside. They offered lounge chair seating on the beach. I read somewhere they charge for the lounges. I guess it offers some comfort to guests that want a base while they explore the beach. I still wasn't leaving our stuff. They have a fantastic staff who seemed honestly pleased to have us there. We walked through it and straight onto the beach.
​
My first thought was omg. I was so mesmerized by the water and colours I was stunned, taking it all in and trying to find the words that would adequately express what I was seeing.
My second thought was how much it reminded me of our beloved Wasaga Beach back home in Ontario. Check out the link. Wasaga is the longest fresh water beach in the world at 14km. It's been a favourite destination of ours in the Summer for decades and I've been going there since I was a little girl.
7 Mile Beach has glorious, fine, white sand that extends about a mile under shallow turquoise water into the Caribbean. I've never seen a more stunning beach/water transition. It's beach is not as wide, but the water was considerably warmer than it would have been back home. That ends the comparison other than to note that when we were in Jamaica, Wasaga was still under snow and ice.
We got a drink and started walking South on the shore. It's not a wide berth and as we progressed we were constantly approached by people wanting to sell us stuff. Everything from weed to fruit that had already seen too much sun. The entire time we felt like we were being stalked. Not just one or 2 people here and there. It was at least every few meters and a new one was in our face. We'd just say no thanks and start walking and there would be 2 more waiting to pounce. Trust me, it got old real fast and we'd only been on the beach for 20 minutes. You didn't see them coming half the time. They were just there, or we'd see them coming from way down the beach. It didn't matter where on the beach we were, when they got close they made a beeline for us. Being a "brother" must have targeted Mike. We took to walking in the water.
We walked in and out of the water for an hour, with distractions. It was my dream come true. Smokin' a dube in the waters of 7 Mile Beach. We visited a couple of shanty looking vendor booths where I bought a very cool baseball cap and another for 2 beach towels. By then we were ready to start back. We wanted to go in the water for a swim first, but there really was no place to comfortably leave our backpacks unattended. There is a perfect opportunity for someone to start up a storage locker business on the beach. We found a spot we were semi-comfortable with, but the short time we were in the water we had to keep our focus on our bags on shore. Just as we headed back to shore 2 of the guys that approached us earlier were hanging around our bags. It turns out they were eyeballing a pack of smokes someone had left behind on the rail there. They just wanted to know if they were ours and when Mike said no, they took them and looked like they'd found treasure lol A couple of happy campers indeed lol It got us out of the water so we started our walk back. Man was that ever a hot walk. I was glad we'd gotten a couple of new towels and my new cap. I think they saved our shoulders & back from further burning. We were lured to a table where a gentleman selling leather wristbands asked us to come and just "look" at his crafts. Mike was looking for a specific type so we obliged the man. None would fit Mike so the fella said he would make him one while we waited. Mike said no brother, we have to meet our ride. Thanks for your time. As we walked away, he said "Thank you for looking and thank you for saying thank you." I guess they get a lot of rejection. I don't know why visitors just can't be polite. Some were so rude to those just trying to make a sparse living in a dismal economy. The beach walkers on the other hand are hustlers and we were brief and got our point across, but we would never be rude.
Towards the point and Booby Cay
Towards the point and Booby Cay
And then we came across Weed Man. He was a little intimidating. At least 6'6", carrying dozens of bags of weed, front & back and swinging a bottle of rum. At least the bottle said rum. I was anticipating this fella and almost hoping we'd run into him, but when I saw him and we were right in front of him I was a little freaked out lol. He's not someone you see every day! We never would have bought from him, but I did want a photo. I asked him if I could take his photo and he said "no problem. I'll take a donation". I gave him a dollar and he was cool with that lol It's all profit.
As we neared Margaritaville, a voice behind us commented on Mike's Maple Leafs cap. We chatted with the man and his wife as we continued walking. We learned they were from Hamilton, a City near us in Ontario and they'd been there since December, gone home briefly and returned for another month. They rented a small apartment at the far end of the beach for US$900 a month. Awesome!
We arrived back at Margaritaville about 1:30. The place was packed. We were hungry by then and sat down, out of the sun. We ordered 2 burgers, fries and 2 Margaritas. It turned out to be the best tasting food we'd had all week. It seems we needed some fat lol It's a good thing we enjoyed it so much. It almost justified our meager meal cost of US$54.
We changed clothes, organized our stuff, sat back and relaxed until Wayne returned around 2:15. I left feeling conflicted. I'd wanted to come here for more than 40 years. I should have done it 40 years ago. The run down shacks housing anything and everything local people can make a buck from, the narrow beachfront because of them and other commercial businesses really hurts the esthetics of this paradise I pictured in my head. Every time I wanted an escape I turned away and focused on the water and let it take me away.
​
I think had we visited Bloody Bay, in spite of housing huge resorts, or stayed at Margaritaville instead of walking the beach, it may have given us more opportunity to spend in the water. We both agree there won't be a next time.
Off to Rick's Café next.