Four boats, including Sea Star arrived at Port Antonio through the Windward Passage leaving Great Inagua about 2:00PM and arriving in Port Antonio the early morning of Easter Monday, a legal holiday in Jamaica, under quite calm conditions. We had traveled within sight of each other; a very nice sail under a moonlit sky for the first hours of our 47 hour trip. For another 8 hours or so we had less than 6 knots of wind and were traveling very slowly. Finally, one of our flotilla, Navy Blue, suggested maybe we should GET there, so we turned on our engines and traveled at about 5 knots. Having had favorable current of about .5 knot the current opposed us toward Jamaica, but the seas were calm-perhaps a four foot rolling swell- very easy. Our AIS system had informed us of as many as nine ships traveling along our route, but because of the traffic separation scheme none of them were a threat to us, well, maybe the one that came close to Windsong was a bit scary. Another bloat of our flotilla, Tregoning, saw a marlin swimming around their boat! Sea Star was the only boat of the four who had its own private raincloud for awhile. Thankfully, the rain washed away some of the trip salt.
Beautiful and majestic were the inadequate words that came to mind when the Blue Mountains and the coast of Jamaica appeared in front of us on the horizon, and a few hours later the mountains appeared lush, green and tree covered as we passed Navy Island and Errol Flynn, the 1930’s actor’s old estate. After the low, sandy islands of the Bahamas Jamaica was a delight to approach and our excitement grew as we skirted the West Harbor and then motored to the East Harbor where Errol Flynn Port Antonio Marina was located.
At the end of our travel we looked forward to resting in Port Antonio. The marina was full and we took a mooring in the mooring field. We understood we couldn’t get off the boat until we had cleared in. I just wanted to sleep. We thought, “It’s a holiday, so no one will want us to check in today.” We were wrong. The Quarantine officer was basically waiting for our little flotilla. To go ashore to the marina required lowering the dinghy, putting on the motor and ferrying the official to examine the boat . He checked the boat for produce, meat and contraband then quickly allowed us to take down the Q flag while waiting for Immigration and Customs. The charge was $25.00US. No problem, mon- you’re in Jamaica!
So here we sit after a full week now. The warm sunshine wakes you in the morning and the reggae beat reverberates from the nearby shore throughout the night and into the wee hours. There is friendly service and amenities at Errol Flynn and a wonderful restaurant with lovely frozen drinks on the property. The US and Jamaican Coast Guards have been practicing maneuvers this week from the nearby dock.
We have ventured out into the town of Port Antonio for site seeing walks and marketing. Excellent fruits and vegetables, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, peppers, bananas, plantains, apples that had not been so readily available throughout the Bahamas are available as well as many fruits and vegetables that we have never encountered. At a local breakfast spot Dan and I had stewed chicken,(yes, for a typical Jamaican breakfast,) with sides of steamed yellow yam, bammy (a bread made from cassava), a corn meal dumpling called festival, and another tuber I can’t recall the name of.
Our first outing into Port Antonioa was to the ATM for Jamaican “Jays” and to scout for jerk chicken. As we arrived at the square a young, street hustler introduced himself and stuck like glue to the new gringos. He just took over, leading us around-to the bank, the jerk chicken on the street (just happened to be his uncle’s street stand)-chicken cooked with wood in a half of a 50 gallon oil drum and served in tinfoil with hotsauce poured onto the already spiced meat. Ok! This is going to be a wonderful town for eats! We ambled back to the marina and began to figure out what we had been letting slide on our boats. I needed to do wash, clean the fridge and freezer and basically make the boat look like a home again.
The next day we again choose to have a meal out. We were greeted at the square entrance by the same hustler who had seen us coming from wherever he was hanging out. He knew we had two vegetarians in our group and he led us to a wooden building containing Mr. Dickson’s wonderful vegetarian restaurant. Inside it was tiny but a very popular place with the Rastafarian population, many of whom are vegetarians. Customers selected what appealed to them from the cases and ate upstairs where there was a nice breeze. We tried various dishes such as hot Jamaican Patty, curried tofu, fritters, fried yellow yam- we loved everything we tried- and topped it off with a homemade ginger soda drink that was very potent. We will surely go back during our stay in Jamaica, which will probably be until mid May.
Hopefully you can see the pics and watch the sunset on passage!
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