Doctoro asked me if I had any old trip reports. Thankfully the webmaster at treasurebeach.net was able to dig out one of mine from Dec '08/Jan '09. I know it's not thaaaat long ago but I enjoyed re-reading it.

http://webtonic.info/discus/messages/1584/11663.html

This was our 3rd trip to Great Bay (5th trip to Jamaica). We had rented a private house. Re-reading this there was one thing I left out because of violence but
since this is a great board, I will fill you all in.

In the "boxing day" part...Matt and I were sitting on the beach across from another couple. It was about 8pm. Just as I was getting ready to speak to them I saw a ruckus out of the corner of my eye. A group of guys had started fighting in front of the "dancing girls" and they were heading our way fast. I yelled "oh shit, there's a fight" and the couple across from us took off running. There's Matt and I, the only tourists in sight in the middle of this way-lay. As we are trying to get back to our house the fight surrounded us. A guy got in my face and screamed "This is the real Jamaica! How you like that?" I was scared and ducked behind a car. Matt yelled at me "don't show your fear" as he stood there, but there were other JA girls hiding with me so I stayed put. I thought the police would be arriving soon so I told Matt to throw away his "J". Being the only white people around I was sure we'd be questioned. Looking back now...the violence wasn't directed towards us and we had plenty of people we knew around us but I was scared. This was the first time Jamaica (to us) was not "Irie".

When we almost got to our gate, the fight surrounded us completely and blocked the gate. We had to turn around. The fighters ended up at the edge of our driveway. Guys were jumping up on cars, climbing our yard fence to jump off to bash each other in the head with their beer bottles. Matt and I turned around to find a back way to our house when we passed a guy in the street getting stabbed. Ugh. We went and hid in the shadows of the pavilion. I saw a lot of people on their cell phones calling the police and a lot of people running for home. About an hour later, Matt and I emerged and walked back to the house. THEN the police rolled by. A little too late officers. They eyeballed us but we kept our heads down. You know the saying "nothing good happens after midnight"? Well I was positive it was late-late and was shocked when I looked at the clock and it read 11pm. Not even midnight.

The next morning the owner and many of the people we know stopped by to make sure we were ok. We were. Shit happens, ya know? "Too much rum and too much weed makes the boys crazy" we were told. It was funny (not haha funny, just an observance (ironic) funny) that the entire week we stayed there, the neighbor kid would run past our house every time just before the police would drive by. If we were sitting on the veranda, you could hear, yard to yard, like the game of telephone, someone yelling "police are coming" and the kid would take off running into the hills. It didn't take long for us to figure out he was the stabber.

They caught him the week after we left and only released him from jail when the stab-ee was released from the hospital.

We returned to Great Bay 2 more times after this trip. We never had any more violence around us and we are still friends with a few people I talk about in this report. One of the guys we met on Boxing night, we still consider a friend.

Re-reading this makes me miss them and Great Bay.

Good Lawd, gurl! What a night!!! You must have 9 lives. Now I know why most of the time, I'm inside a locked door & sleeping by 10 pm! Man.....

GirlFriend you and Matt do not do Jamaica like the average or even above average tourist. I have at least an hour let me get to this cliff hanger.

Thanks for reposting.