We signed up at the Aqua Sports desk for the glass-bottom boat tour and headed out with a few other couples. We saw corals, some bright-blue fish darting to and fro, black and white sea urchins and a few other things below the surface.
The tour guide then told us about some of the sights on shore, including the Sandals Plantation resort that was next door. Apparently the all-butler resort costs about $15,000 per week, which is about incomprehensible to me, and has noise strictly forbidden on the beach. The servers there respond to you when you raise a flag and need to order something.
"And they just upgraded," the tour guide said. "If you have to go to the bathroom, you just raise your flag and someone will pee for you."
When we arrived back on shore, we decided what else we were going to do that day, and Nate saw that there was beach volleyball that afternoon.
I kind of scrunched up my face.
"OK, I'm not a huge volleyball fan but that's fine if you want to do it," I said.
"You don't want to?"
"I played volleyball in seventh grade and spent the entire season with bruises on my forearms. It hurts."
We made our way over to the sand volleyball courts that afternoon and hit the ball around a few times while waiting for others to show up.
It still hurt.
Some avid beach volleyball players came over, chatting about the other games they had played that week, and I ended up joining a team to even out the numbers. Blessedly, the staff person that was playing went to get a different ball that was softer, and that made me happy.
I stood back a little, on a team with all males, and tried to hit it when it came near me, but they seemed to want to hit it more so I just let them. In turn, that made them think that I couldn't do it, and soon they ran to get it even when it was directly at me. It was one of those frustrating sports moments when you just want to say, "Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't hit it, back off," but I didn't.
I did the splits a few times, hit some nice serves in my opinion and got completely sandy. And Nate had a blast. That was really all that mattered, this wasn't for me anyway.
The thing that I will always remember about that Wednesday though wasn't anything that we did. In fact, it was something that many people complained about.
When we were in Jamaica, it rained every day. And I was flabbergasted that people were complaining to the staff about it. Honestly, what on earth were they supposed to do about the weather?
Well on Wednesday, it started raining right after our glass bottom boat ride. We waded out into the water a little bit, because we're certainly not afraid of a little rain, but it was colder than we thought it would be, so we headed up to our room to sit on the balcony.
We played cards and watched as the pretty good winter storm rolled in and laughed as the rain started to go sideways and hit us on the balcony.
About an hour later, the storm cleared. And then, there it was --- a gorgeous rainbow that started on the turquoise blue waters of the ocean and ended on a forested peninsula.
I was just in awe. The colors were vibrant. The arch perfection. I could actually see where it came out of the water, something that I had never seen before.
As we were oggling and taking photos, we started to notice that it was not just one rainbow but two. A double ocean rainbow.
It was an unexpected blessing and a reminder that we should appreciate all the little things. Had it not rained on vacation, we would not have experienced this epic moment.
Even rain brings blessings.
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