Zip-line day in Jamaica! This is the day Shelly was most looking forward to. Woke at six to another beautiful day. Able to get a signal this morning so we were able to check emails. Heard about the foot of snow Edmonton got last week. Darn, too bad we missed it. Hope Joe shovelled us out at home.

      
      
    
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Down for breakfast at 8:00, then made our way to the Princess Theatre at 8:45 to join our tour group for the Canopy Zipline Experience. After a bit of a delay, we boarded the bus, waited some more, then on our way for the 45 minute drive to our destination. After 15 minutes of highway driving we turned on to a narrow one lane goat trail that wound its way up through the hills until we arrived at our staging point a ½ hour later. Prior to being escorted to the first platform, we were all fitted into harnesses and helmets.  Then we got a brief safety and operations instruction.

        
      

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That done, we wound our way on foot down a challenging footpath for about 700 yards. Arriving at the first traverse point, the four of us who were towards the back of the pack got to watch 20 or so other zippers launch themselves into space before it was our turn. I went first. They hooked me up and said GO!, so away I went. It was quite a rush sailing 45 feet over the ground for 100 yards or so.

Lee came next and she looked like an old pro when she came gliding up to where I was on the second platform. However, I was later told by Bob and Shelly that she had a pretty bad case of "I don't want to do this" when she was supposed to go and needed a little nudge from the fellow who was sending us on our way. There was also the wardrobe malfunction with her helmet. Lee swore that the reason she didn't want to launch was because her helmet slipped down a bit and she was scared she'd lose it.

Shel came next. Even though she was the one who kept telling us she didn't think she could do this, she came flying down the zipline with only a moderate scream. We learned later it was heard back on the ship. Bob was the last of our little foursome because he wanted to watch Shelly's performance. When it was all said and done, we all made our first zipline ride with flying colors. There were to be eight more traverses before we arrived at the bottom.

      
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The traverses ranged from 105 to 660 feet, with two that went straight down. Those were almost the toughest because you didn't think you'd stop fast enough after you jumped off the platform. But, with the way they rigged the gear, you did. The final traverse was the longest and it was long. Regardless, we all had a lot of fun and it was quite the experience.

With that said though, Shelly did have one little hiccup. On one of the platforms she was hesitating as she wasn't quite sure how to launch herself.  So, I yelled out from behind her in the peanut gallery to sit down as she leapt. Very unlike her, she followed my advice for the first time ever (actually, she thought it was the attendant instructing her) and she sat down when she launched. She was a little quick to do so and did a bum slide off the platform that was quite spectacular. No damage done, but we all had a pretty good chuckle (except for Shelly) over her unorthodox leap.

      
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Once we were done with the ziplining and had our feet firmly planted on solid ground the harnesses came off. We then walked close to a mile down a trail through the rainforest to where our bus was waiting. During the ride back to the ship, our driver George treated us to a couple of Jamaican songs. When we arrived at the pier at 2:00, Lee and Shel headed to the shops to make some purchases. Bob and I beelined it back to the ship and to our rooms where we knew a couple of cold drinks were waiting for us.

    
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The girls arrived back at the ship at 3:00.  Lee bought a Ganja Grinder (now, I still don't know for the life of me why she felt she needed one) and Blue Mountain coffee. Shelly purchased a couple of shirts for Niko and one for Bob. The ship weighed anchor at 3:30.

    
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We dressed for dinner at 5:30 again and made our way down to the dining room. Another very nice meal. After dinner was done we retired to the casino for about an hour then back to the staterooms. Cocktails and reliving the events of the day for the next couple of hours then off to bed at 11. A long day, but a fun day.

  
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