There are many things to see and do in Port Antonio Errol Flynn Marina. A boater could just sit on board watch the shore and listen to the happenings around the harbor as we do for hours each day. The marina is an isolated place-a gated entrance out to the road.
There are few Jamaicans in the marina itself who do not work there. We hired some of the men to wash, wax and shine the stainless on our boat and they did a great job. It would have been hard to say no, as they are very persistent in their offering and willing to bargain. We hired Hulk and Presley for the wash and wax and Donovan for the stainless. They were professional and entertaining, both. We learned to wash our hull with vinegar before waxing to eliminate the white chalky film that was on it and -they sold us our new reggae CD’s! These guys are entrepreneurs and inventive when it comes to making a few dollars and always seem to be in a good mood with cheery “Hello, M’ Lady” or Hello, Captain.”
Right next to the marina is a small harbor area for the police boats, the worst offenders when it comes to waking (rocking) boats tied at the dock. Behind them is a sparsely treed park with benches and colorful flowers. The park has gazebos where men or families congregate to stay out of the sun after work and toward evening. At breakfast at a two story building right outside the gate, Dan and I were seated overlooking the park. There was a Rastafarian man all dressed in black clothing, barefoot and hair wrapped into a two foot tall turban, straddling a branch of one of the bigger trees and apparently sound asleep, not stirring as hoards of chattering people passed ten feet from him!
Right now, day time, there is reggae music pounding from shore, possibly from the high school that seems to be having a function today. I keep hearing “and there are going---going –going, ah yes, they run!” It could be a track meet or something like that or perhaps a land crab race. I can’t tell from here. Another boater heard music from shore and went to investigate. He saw a parade with the high school band and dancing girls and discovered to his surprise the parade was a funereal procession. Different cultures are fun to explore!
One of those cultural differences is the the use of ganja. There are colorful characters here in Porti and the smell of ganja is present in many alleyways and street corners, shops and entertainment spots as you walk past. Though technically illegal, it is said that if you are not selling it and you pay the cops….
Our boat is on a mooring and behind us is a sandspit that starts in some mangrove trees. There is a Rastaman who said he was forty-seven, a man with long dread locks, who apparently lives in those mangroves and visits the boats to chat each day. He sold us some mangos and told us “goodbye, I will go now and have a J and meditate.” He appears to be a peaceful man but the young men in town apparently give him a hard time. He says the bad ones have killed some of his dogs, and they keep stealing the boards he gets to make himself a proper house. He paddles around the bay areas, even going fishing on his long, narrow bamboo raft. His oars are split bamboo sticks. I read that the Rastas are in tune with their natural surroundings. I feel sorry that this man lives in the open as the rain we have been having lately is torrential. It has raised the water level and the ground is soggy for a long time after the rain. At times it has rained so hard I had to bail out the dinghy with the pump three times in one day! The weather never seems to bother him when he comes around. He was standing at our boat when the Swift US vessel left for sea. (see below) His response, “Goodbye to you, war monger. If no America, no war, right?”
There is music playing mostly all the time in the town of Port Antonio- Porti for short. All night on the weekend there was such loud music I was unable to sleep. Of course we assumed it had to be from a huge and popular nightclub. We found out the sounds were from a one room bar and pool hall on the second floor of a building with the speakers turned toward the anchorage bay-and everybody is just going to live with it because it’s “no problem, mon.” The marina operators listen to the cruiser complaints but they really can’t do anything, and the cruisers move on anyway.
Last night a coast guard vessel left its two week berth at another part of the harbor. The First Mate was a young man from Jamestown, RI and when he saw the homeport on Sea Star he stopped and invited us for a tour of the HSV 2 SWIFT, a 160 foot aluminum catamaran Navy vessel. The tour was informative and the ship space-age! Apparently the motion of the ship underway in large seas is not the most comfortable to these highly experienced seamen. They have nicknamed it the “Vomit Comet” for obvious reasons. The chart plotter and navigation equipment were interesting. The ship doesn’t have a wheel to steer it. I guess it’s like a video game using three toggle switches and lots of computer assist. This is a swift vessel; it can cruise at 46kn! It has guns mounted forward and stern but says Swift wouldn’t have to use them, she is so fast. The crew were about to change after a 90 day rotation and were heading north last Friday.
A few days ago a Transcaribe rally from various islands arrived at Errol Flynn and the marina was a full as it has ever been. The rally brought in 20 sailboats; some cats and some monohulls. The marina operators and owner Dale and manager George were quite excited to entertain all these boaters and hope the Errol Flynn Marina is becoming a destination. There were two nights of special events livening up the marina area. Most of the rally boats have left for Cuba or other islands east, like the ABC’s- Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao.
Cruisers need stuff so we venture into town regularly. We are lucky it is so close that walking is easy. It’s always an adventure to go to town. An important fact from the daily newspaper is that the police have reduced crime by 56% in Port Antonio. We want to travel in the country a bit and visit the Blue Mountains so we went into town in search of a roadmap to plan a trip. Where do you get a map? Maybe a book store-“Yeah mon, deas a book store up them steps but they ain’t open no mo, deas downstairs now.” Ok, so we look for the bookstore downstairs at the far end of the market street. To get there we walk on sidewalks and down into the gutters and around poles supporting upper floors of buildings and through the ladies hawking their vegetables and fruits and around the guys selling videos, cell phones and whatever to find the store really has closed, but there is another one back at the other end of town at the pharmacy. That now required a trek back through all the previously mentioned and then, “No, suh we don’t got no maps here, try the shell station down over there.” Finally, Dan did find a map at the Shell station, and a good one, too. It only took about two hours.
It seems by searching and asking around we can get some basic things we need. We are trying for hamburger tomorrow. That should be an adventure. Today Maggie is in dire need of kitty litter so off we went on the same trek as before after getting directions to the “pet store.” That sounded promising, and we did find the narrow kinda hole in the wall store where the sign said “Farm chicks and ducks.” We peered in at a single file line where the clerk behind the counter is told what is needed and she gets the items. “We ain’t got some. Tomorrow. De guy he go Kingston and I call him. Yeah, we get shavings, dey look like dis.” She held up a bag of birdfood. So what were we to do? We haven’t a clue what will show up tomorrow, but I hope Maggie likes it.
There are some clothing stores, grocery stores, pharmacies and bulk liquor stores where you bring in your own bottle to fill or you can walk out with a case of soda. I went into a fabric store today. A cruiser I met is returning to the states for her daughter’s wedding in May and needed a dress. She tried the clothing shops but was not inspired. The stores seemed like mini Walmarts to her and she was getting worried that her daughter would be upset with how tackily her mother dressed at her wedding! While walking on the market street she saw a sign Charm’s Dressmaking. Under a staircase in a tiny shop she found a seamstress named Charm and Charm made her a simple sheath dress -in one day from fabric she selected-for under $15.00. It was cute! I decided to have a few tops made from light weight material because all my clothing is too hot. Charm took me to the fabric store and for the equivalent of $6.00 I selected the material for two tops and a cotton dress. I will have them on Wednesday, she says.
As we learn what is available in the town, we do a lot of walking to explore historic areas and see the views from the highest hills. We have visited an island once owned by Errol Flynn and later turned into an exclusive resort- but the buildings are now closed and decaying though the foliage is lush with wonderful shades of green, especially after a tropical downpour of which we have had a few.
Walking to the Titchfield High School above the bay we find it was built right on and within Fort George, built by the British. The old cannon were there and still pointed at the narrow bay entrance.
Above the market in town about a mile up a narrow one lane road there was again a closed hotel/resort with a 360 degree view of the lovely entrance bays to the Port. That road was great for bird watching as the steep ravines covered in tall trees entwined with vines, ferns and umbrella sized pacas and ivies were lower than the road we walked up so we could look down into the canapy.
Sea Star, Windsong and Tregoning crews are all having similar experiences here in Port Antonio. We get together about once a day to go out to eat or walk or share our stories or the latest information although we have met many other travelers going south or east from here. We took a fun rafting trip on the Rio Grande together and are planning a trip into the mountains. More on these in my next writing.
Here are a few pics!
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