Jamaica's Blue Hole! - 2/11/15

This is something I really didn't expect! When I was reading about the Blue Hole day, I thought it was just going to this one big fall and jumping in. Maybe some swimming around. It turns out there was much more to it that that! We were there well over an hour and a half. Maybe two hours? But we walked up the river a bit and had the opportunity to jump off of several smaller little "cliffs" into various pools of water. There was much more than just that one bluish pool of water. 

So for fun, first up, sit under a small waterfall!  It's a back massage- sure! Alex in the waterfall! 

So then our group all had the chance to walk up to that little jump and into the water. You can see how one of the guides walks with you every step of the way. He would help each person as needed. It was actually amazing that for each person, a guide was exactly where he needed to be, and there were only two of them, and one of them had my camera!

Now, that jump might not look like much in a picture right? But let me tell you, when you have no reason to jump into water from any height, and you don't really know how deep that water is???? Something is telling you to NOT jump!

Unless of course you're this guy!

Then we moved along and got to a slightly higher jump! And off went Megan!

And then came the BIG fall, the Blue Hole Fall! Who would do it? Well, in our group a couple of the guys, and Alex and I did it! The guides hold your arms and walk you down the side of the fall! How cool is that? Now, I will tell you that going there I had NO intentions of jumping or walking down a waterfall or any of that nonsense! But being there, it was fun! When am I going to get a chance to do any of this ever again! And as you see, I am not a fit or in shape person...if I can do this, pretty much, anyone can! So....here I go! Alex is up on deck after me...

It sort of looks like I'm running down the fall, but I'm in the air in this picture!

And Alex's turn!

And then of course the guides jumped from right up at the top!

Megan had no part in that adventure! Or the next....there was this little opening, a "cave" they said! Climb in, feet first! Sure...ok!

This is behind the falls....well you're going in blind, the guide is in there to grab your foot, and you get in there and realize - hey, I'm just right behind the falls and I could have just swam right in! That's what Megan did! It was actually pretty funny. All of us squeezing into this tiny hole, into this unknown pit...and she just swam right in from the big light fall!

You can see here where it's open to the big pool of water....

Looking out of the "cave" 

You can see the guides helped everyone along, and here you can see the one also holding my camera. I must have had the water camera at this point. This was actually towards the beginning because Megan didn't have her life vest on yet, you can see the other guide in the background still holding onto it. 

After being back behind the falls, we swam across this really beautiful pool of water and then walked across some rocks to this next area where this was a rope swing you could swing from and drop into the next area if you'd like to!

I was actually surprised Keith did this - he's terrified of heights. But I guess since it was water below and he had his life vest on, he was fine with it.

And in he goes!

Next went Alex on the rope swing

Megan and I as well as some of the others in the group knew we'd never be able to hold onto the rope, so we just jumped. Megan's courage had grown a lot from that jump back at the beginning!

And then we climbed up this ladder, through this hole...here we could either end our blue hole journey, OR jump off the biggest jump yet! Who would do it?

Keith and Megan had no intentions of jumping off of anything higher than what they just did...they waited in the water with the water camera....

It really was gorgeous there!

So yea, I guess I'm going first? I don't know how that happened, and believe me, it took a LOT of will power to make me actually step off that edge! 

But I did it! And it was so much fun! 

And Alex was next....

I can't believe I don't have a picture of him in the air! I'm almost positive we have it on video though. That's what Megan was doing in the water....

Alex loved the jump so much that he did it twice!

There's him going in the 2nd time!

And while this picture should have been at the beginning, based on the "Welcome"! We took it at the end of our time at the Blue Hole...our guides had us all stand together and they took the picture for us.

Again, I can not say enough positive things about the guides at the Blue Hole. They were fantastic as far as making sure every one of us there felt safe while walking along the rocks, and confident in our abilities. I was so hesitant about bringing my kids to jump off of ledges and cliffs into the unknown in Jamaica, and there I was jumping off the highest ones in the end!

But our day with Liberty Tours wasn't over! We still had river tubing to go!

We all piled back into the van with Rose Marie, who made sure that we had a great time, and also introduced us to Ricardo, who runs Liberty Tours. He was there with another tour group. He personally wanted to be sure that our group enjoyed the Blue Hole and that everything was going well so far.

Off we were heading over to the river for our tubing!