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
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