Jamaica to Panama

It took us three more days after reading the news of John to muster
the guts to make a run at the sail to Panama.

We pulled out Monday March 3rd morning at about 5am. The weather
looked good,
15 knots from the NE and forecast to drop as we get closer to
Panama. Crap
thing was it was raining and it's no fun leaving at 5am in the
rain - but we did.

We had about 25 miles of solid upwind sailing to get around the
eastern point of the island, once we were there we would be able to
run off and make the trip on a beam reach.

As the morning was less than pleasant, rain, up wind slog, still the
lingering feeling of John. We both decided to make a stop on the way
south.

About 35 miles south of the corner of Jamaica is a small ( VERY
SMALL)
sandy cay and a few reefs called the Morant Cays.

With the wind and swell direction we figured that we could make a
stop here for the night, anchor in the calm lee side of the sand
bank and reef and have a nice first night out.

We arrived in the Morant Cays about 3pm. Not much there, two big
sand
banks, and a reef. Not an ounce of vegetation. But to our
amazement
there were people living on the sand bank!! Only three ( fisherman)
god knows how they do it. The sand bank would be 200m long and maybe
50m wide!!

We motor around looking for a spot to drop the anchor. It's still a
bit lumpy as the sea is managing to get over the reefs and is
curling around the "anchorage". We drop the hook in about 4m of
very clear water. It takes a LONG time for us to get the anchor set,
lots of noise coming up the chain meaning that there is a lot of
rock / coral down there, finally it sets.

Jason decides it may be worth jumping in the water and having a look
at the anchor to make sure it's hooked in ok - last thing we want to
do
is drag in the middle of the night!

Getting down to the anchor he finds it lying upside down just
holding on... have to do something here...
So with Jo on the boat driving the boat forward to take the load off
the anchor, Jason is walking the seabed with a 30kg anchor in his
arms over to a big rock that he can hook it under. Would have looked
quite odd seeing someone walking barefoot holding their breath with
a big anchor in their arms.

But job done and we are hooked in well for the night.

After sorting the boat out one of the fisherman comes up in his
little boat and asks if everything is ok!, lovely guy he seemed
concerned for us which was really nice. Wish we had some cigarettes
to give him (they all like to smoke over here).
He is on his way and we settle in for a few episodes of Seinfeld,
early dinner and sleep!

Next morning the wind and sea looks a little more friendly, we make
a move around the civilized hour of 9am!, (after a coffee and
breakfast of course).

It was a little troublesome getting the anchor out of the rock as it
was well jammed under, but after a few goes - left then right we
were
free and on the way to Panama.

Day 2:

Well so far (knock on wood) we couldn't have asked for better
conditions, the sea state is very mild, the wind is around 15-20
knots and we are averaging around 8 knots. No squalls, and so far no
kookey seas.

Coming down this part of the Caribbean you need to think of the
shoals, the shallow patches of water. Now when we say shallow here
we don't mean 3-4 meters, we mean 300-400 meters of water.

There is a current running here of about 1 knot to the west, the
average depth we are sailing is around 3000m (3 km!) so when you
have a "shoal" of 300 meters rising up from 3000m there is a lot of
water that has to go somewhere and it usually goes into waves and
current in other directions. So as we are sailing we are zig zaging
down to avoid running directly over the shallow areas.

Just passing one now (in the next two hours) it is 387m coming up
from 2917m! We are in the deep areas and hopefully we will find a
nice bit of zooming current being deflected from it. Yesterday we
were moving over the ground at close to 10 knots, but only through
the water at 7!. as we skipped off the edge of another "shallow"
area. It was really neat looking at the GPS with 9+ knots on it and
the water around the boat barely moving.

At the current rate we should hit Panama in about 24 hrs ( at midday
Friday 7th March).

Day 3: 5:00pm March 6th.

Well we didn't pick any favorable current as we passed the sea
mounts. Actually a small counter current, about 1/2 Knot.

Getting MUCH warmer in the boat than in Jamaica, currently 30 deg C!
inside - Air con would be nice.
Wind and seas are much the same, 15 knots and quite calm seas!!
Starting to see some more ships as we get closer to the
entrance of the Canal.

So far we have totally lucked it with the weather, the wind has been
so light that we've even had to turn on the engine a few times.
Looks like
it'll be a squall free evening as there is not a cloud in sight out
in front. We settle down to our last dinner under way and then get
into our last night of night watches...YAY!!!

Day 4: 4:30pm March 7th.

Last night was A VERY calm and beautiful night!

Still haven't hooked any fish and we have just started to enter
shallower water as we approach the Canal wall, we've got an hour and
a bit to go. Just had a big strike, but the poor fish got away
leaving only his lips and a few teeth behind...
Overall it's been a great passage with light winds and VERY calm
seas, so not what we were expecting, we fluked the weather this time
once more! (Last time coming down to Panama in 2005 it was just as
calm).

Gotta run, the entrance is approaching......and there are BIG ships
anchored off everywhere, looks like we'll have to dodge our way in!

Cheers
J&J

Yeh Mon Jamaica!!

Jamaica,

What a wonderful place!

Before we arrived we hit the books and internet researching what
Jamaica has to offer, what it's like etc. One impression was that
there seemed to be a lot of "advice" on how dangerous it is, "crime
is rampant", it's a VERY poor country with a current of resentment
towards "white" people. Other people we spoke to expressed concern
about going to Jamaica!

Interesting thing is that most of the people telling us how bad
Jamaica is were heading off to Venezuela! Hmmm..

Our impressions of Jamaica, certainly where we are in the north east
quadrant of the Island could not be further from the "advice" we
were given.

The place is fantastic, the people are VERY friendly, show no ill
feeling towards "whites", visitors, themselves or anybody for that
matter. We would walk into town and feel under no more threat than
any other Caribbean island. Jo would head into town to the local
market by herself and feel fine. Of course we get the looks, and
the occasional "hey white man" but it hasn't been in a
threatening or derogatory manner. After all we are "white"!

In all the eastern Caribbean islands only two would we feel safer
than Jamaica, that being St Barts and the BVI's! We've certainly
been in far more dodgy places in other parts of the eastern
Caribbean for sure, recalling that once in St Lucia we even slept
with the boat locked up. ( We think that's the norm now in most of
the eastern islands).

Jamaica is quite poor though, but no poorer than most of the
other Caribbean Islands, infact it comes across as more affluent
than Fiji and certainly Tonga. The main Captial city Kingston is a
real city, glass buildings, shopping centers etc. Kingston has it
all, a big contrast the the "country" areas.

Jamaica is wonderful with the rhythm of reggae music playing
everywhere, chicken and pork cooking on BBQ's in the streets, and
school children dressed in perfectly ironed uniforms walking the
streets.

By far the most dangerous part of Jamaica is the roads, they suck!,
determined to destroy any car's suspension and displace all but the
stongest necks and backs! Some work really needs to be done here.

On our second day in Jamaica, we were visited by Rachel, the
immigration officer. Rachel sat in the cockpit filling in the
documents for our visas quietly singing to an old Bob Marley song.
Once she was done we were all cleared in and officially in the
country.

We ask the marina office staff about the security situation, how bad
is it - not knowing yet!, They give us a smile and say "its ok Mon,
there's no crime here in Portland ( the district where Port Antonio
is).

The marina at Port Antonio is now called the Errol Flynn Marina.
Reason is, just off the marina there is a small island which used to
be owned by Errol Flynn! called Navy Island.

There is a lot of history here in the north of Jamaica, Ian
Flemming used to come here to write his James Bond Novels, his old
house is still here called "Golden Eye" and a few of the James Bond
Movies were filmed here as well, "Dr No", "Live and Let Die". There
is even a beach here called "James Bond Beach", Mr Fleming
certainly made his mark on Jamaica. Noel Coward also used to have a
house here called "Firefly".

Not far from Port Antonio are two awesome beaches. San San beach and
Blue Hole. San San is a small cove with a great little beach and
lots of coral. There are houses perched right on the water and it is
very spectacular. The beach scenes from the movie "Cocktail" were
filmed here in San San. Blue Hole, is a natural wonder, it's a
small bay open to the sea, and at the end of the bay the water drops
to 280ft deep where a natural fresh water spring pumps fresh water
up
from the depths into the salt water above. The movie "Blue Lagoon"
was filmed here. ( we thought it was done in Fiji! - but no it was
done in Jamaica!).

So while we were in Port Antonio we did a few boat things, met a
bunch of folks and got to know the locals. On the dock working as
"day workers" on arriving boats were Mike, Presley, Fire, Donovan,
and the "Fat Man" - Steve. These guy's help with your lines and
docking and are allowed to work on boats while in the marina. We had
Presley polish all the stainless steel on Reverie and WOW what an
awesome job he did, even shined the threads on the life lines and
rigging turn buckles!

The following day we took Presley up to "Boston" (not Boston in the
US) but Boston in Jamaica, the Jerk captial. What is Jerk? it's the
spice mix they use in their BBQ's, it's hot and spicy and tastes
fantastic. The taxi ride up to Boston was a killer. What should
take 10min took 30min, we were in this car that no other country in
the world would call roadworthy, all the suspension was gone, the
tailgate was held shut with duct tape, breaks questionable, steering
looked very loose and the driver more concerned about chatting than
dodging all the massive holes in the road. But we got there on one
piece.

We expected Boston to be a town, but what we found was a section of
a road filled with small shacks with fires in them cooking chicken,
fish, pork, lobster and bread fruit ( brought to Jamaica by the
British from Tahiti to feed the slaves - Mutiny on the Bounty fame).

A few beers, some jerk pork, chicken and fish and we were back in a
taxi to Port Antonio, this taxi was a little better but the driver
was
#%^&#ng crazy, thought we were going to die! it wasn't just us
Presley was quite nervous as well!

In the Marina we were next to an American boat, an Island Packet 38
called "Carioca" on board was John, just him, he was planning on
sailing around the world alone!. He kinda got stuck in Jamaica for 2
months and was getting ready to leave when we arrived. As the
weather didn't look right he took a few more days to leave for
Panama. Right where we would be going in a week's time. It can be a
tough trip down to Panama, takes about 3-5 days ( depending how fast
you go) you have the full trade winds right on your side with the
Caribbean rolling into the same side, so unless you are lucky you
neen to plan on it being windy with a stong sea running.

John Pulled out Sunday Feb 24th morning about 6am, looking at the
weather it looked like he was in for a nice trip, the forecast
looked like 15 knots from the NE all the way to Panama.

Five days after John left we were getting Reverie ready to go, wind
was up a little as was the rain squalls but we were ready to move.
When we reach Panama we will transit the Canal and sometimes there
is a wait, usually 1 week but sometimes it can move out to 5
weeks!!!. We thought we would check Johns website for an update on
his trip down to Panama and if he mentioned anything about the
transit wait as he should be well there by this time.

Logging into his website www.adventurecarioca.com

we were shocked
to read his ordeal. On the 4th day he had some engine problems,
while looking at the problem it seems that he may have been "knocked
down" he unfortunately dislocated his shoulder and was unable to fix
the engine or manage the sails on the boat. With what must have
been a terrifying night he had to abandon Carioca to be rescued by a
Ship coming up from Panama. John is alright but Carioca was last
seen quite submerged in heavy seas.

When we read this we both felt sick in the stomach - what an
ordeal to go through and to leave your boat, killer decision. We
read this the day before we were to leave for Panama. We couldn't
leave, it just felt all wrong.

More soon.

cheers

J&J