THE PERFECT LIST: SKYWRITINGS MAGAZINE

It's not often that any two people can agree about our "likes" or dis-likes", our pleasures (secret or otherwise), our senses of Delight or Astonishment, but it's hard to dispute any of these sensual Island favourites...

LINDA GAMBRILL’ S "THE PERFECT TEN" SKYWRITINGS’ FOUNDING EDITOR KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT ENJOYING LIFE’S PLEASURES. HERE ARE HER PICKS FOR SAVOURING THE SIMPLE JOYS.

•The perfect fruit—a little black mango, washed in the sea, peeled with your teeth, and sucked clean in you mouth.

•The perfect cup of coffee—a cup of Blue Mountain, enjoyed at Strawberry Hill on the verandah.

•The perfect moment—an afternoon downpour after a huge Sunday lunch, at San San in Port Antonio.

•The perfect view—standing on the lawn at Firefly, looking east down the coast, just like Henry Morgan did.

•The perfect drink—coconut water fresh from a coconut sold by a vendor on his donkey cart and chopped open right there. After the water having the water, scoop out the soft jelly with a “spoon” cut from the nut.

•The perfect flower—The scent of the night-blooming jasmine
wafting through the bedroom window on a moonlit night.

•The perfect soup—pepperpot made with callaloo, garden egg,
shrimp, pigs tail, yellow yam, spinners, sweet pepper, scallion,
Scotch Bonnet pepper, thyme, kale and coco.

•The perfect drive—harrowing but enchanted one—the drive up to Newcastle Hills, around past Hollywell, and towards Buff Bay.

•The beauty of the old man’s beard wrapped around the power lines; the mist settling among the mountains; the moss and the tree ferns;the gigantic bamboo grass swaying in the breeze.

•The perfect picnic spot—Hollywell Park, take a sweater and good walking shoes.

••The perfect sunset—looking west from Calabash Bay, St. Elizabeth.

Add to this List or any other "Bucket List" experiences... that is your pleasure.

I agree wholeheartedly with the perfect view, flower, drive, drink, and of course sunset!

As for the perfect mango, change black to julie and I'm there!

Thanks for sharing this wonderful list.

Can't wait to hear what others add to this.

Bombay, not julie.

Moonlight night. Anywhere in Ja but a quiet beach is best.

Thanks Zed for sharing and Linda for reminding us.

Ahh the sound of the waves - I love it !

The perfect panarama: Sunset from Hill Top looking over the Black River flood plain toward Black River with clear air and cumulus clouds.


The perfect sunrise: Looking east from Seapus III at Jake's at 6:45 a.m.


The perfect night view: Watching the southern stars; Sirius spinning, Orion's Nebula, Pleiades, Betelgeuse and our neighbors Mars, Venus, Saturn and Jupiter mixed with a handful of meteors on a clear moonless night from anywhere in Treasure Beach.

Do you think I'm biased?

SENTRY'S THOUGHTS

Plucked from another TB.Net thread:

•"Treasure Beach nice fi true. Roast fish pon di beach, wash dung wit cole Red Stripe. Di nicess people yu want fi meet, kids sayin good mawnin and good evelin. Ya mon! Figet bout Negril iyah."

...what, no starch? festival...bammy...yam...boiled green banana (oh nuh, mi belly fat!)

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH MY POSTING?
TURPENTINE (SPELLING)I'M NOT POSITIVE OF THE SPELLING BUT "TURPENTINE"IS A MANGO ALSO CALLED RENKIN MANGO...

•SKYDIVING OVER BOSCOBEL
and free-falling from 12,500 feet at 120 miles an hour until "puff", rip cord pulled, you under parachute, float & swirl back to terra firma as the gorgeous North Coast coastline and hills get closer & closer and closer and "splat"...

www.skydive-jamaica.com/

BIOLUMINESCENCE

Years ago, boating out, on a moon-less night, upon the Glistening Waters Lagoon at Oyster Bay Trelawney, paddling softly the bioluminescent surface, with hands sparking watery stars....one of only four such phenomenon on the planet, nearby "constructions" are already degrading the effect.

We are losing it!

Yo Zed, like recently learning of deers in Portland, this is my first learning of bioluminescence in Trelawney. Could you expand a little?

Yo Back, Sentry:

I tried to locate some photos of the Lagoon, but couldn't find anything digital.

There was a time, even before there was a dive center and marina there, that you could go out in a rowboat, in quiet, surrounded by sheltering mangroves, swim and see lit-up fish and jellies whoshing by .Without a whole lot jabbering talk & relative quiet, and not too many lights in the distance, like after midnight, it remains one of the greatest natural wonders on our Rock...a dynamic, changing, numinous phenom.

With all the new commercialism & tourist-attraction licensing going around, I'm not sure if you can still arrange a private boat, unless you have an "in" with the proprietors or staying at the near-by hotel.

There is a picture on the following link, & the scientific explanation goes something like this:

"The lagoon is the home of a rare phosphorescent microbe – a dinoflagellate - that lives where the warm fresh waters of the Martha Brae River meet the salt waters of the Caribbean. The constant movement and flowing of the river causes the microbes to move and glow with a neon-green color.
The phosphorescence is so marked that the fish swimming in the lagoon have been likened to moving stars. The activity stirred up by tourist boats and swimmers only enhances the effect. This unique microbial phenomenon can be found in just four places in the world, and Jamaica’s Luminous Lagoon is considered the best place on the planet to experience it."

www.jamaicans.com/tourist/articles_travel/JamaicaLuminousLagoon.shtml

Thank you Zed. Can't wait to check it out.