Yes, they actually say that. In fact, the patois that we are so familiar with from movies and TV is exactly what you hear in person. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to ask someone to repeat what they just said to us, allegedly in our own language!
But before we get ahead of ourselves and start talking about Jamaica we needed to cross the Caribbean Sea. Colombia’s geography of exceedingly tall coastal mountains creates a massive wind wall that follows the coast well out to sea. These compressed airs lead to very high winds up to 150 miles offshore and it tends to blow for weeks at a time with only short breaks. We had to wait for a window to get to Colombia from Panama and then again to leave for Jamaica. So, we took the “best” window we had seen in several weeks, knowing that the first 36 hours would suck. Boy did it ever! The seas were roughly 10′ on average and coming from the front quarter made it both unpleasant and slow. The first night we slowed the boat to just 3+ knots of speed to try to diminish the slamming of the boat. It got much better after that but, with a 3.6 kt counter current, it ended up taking us just shy of five days to cover 500 nautical miles. We were planning on a little over 3 days.
We are staying at the Errol Flynn Marina in Port Antonio, Jamaica on the northeast side. Errol Flynn, the biggest movie star of the late 1930’s to early 40’s, was literally shipwrecked during a storm on his luxury yacht right here in 1942. He fell in love with the area and bought Navy Island, just offshore, as well as a lot of property in town, including a 400 room luxury hotel. During his time, he built a huge mansion and hosted everyone from kings and queens to Hollywood royalty over many years. Most of that legacy is now just ruins but the name remains.
We decided to rent a car for a week to see the sights. One of the things Errol Flynn is remembered for here is the establishment of bamboo rafting on the local rivers. This area was, and still is, covered with small banana growers who used such bamboo rafts to transport their bananas to the port for export. Errol, quite the ladies man (read that with extreme understatement) was well known for taking a date down the river on one raft with a second carrying lunch and a third carrying the bar. Elizabeth Taylor wrote about such an adventure with him and added that he often did a second run in the afternoon with a different girl! He built a lovely place at the end of the Rio Grande to host his guests so that’s where we went. It is still a going concern and has been imitated on all the navigable rivers of Jamaica. We took a taxi 45 minutes up into the Blue Mountains to the start. The rafts are about 35′ long and seat two. They last about six months and then each captain has to rebuild his own. Our captain said it takes a day to cut the bamboo and three days to construct. They can only do these runs until the water is about 5′ higher, which is much of the rainy season. Including two swim stops we spent a little over three hours on the river having a delightful and relaxing time. No bugs either!
The next day we set out on our road circumnavigation of Jamaica. We discovered several new-to-us fruits including Otaheite apples which were delicious, having no core-just a seed. John also had Ackee fruit, usually with saltfish as Harry Belafonte sang about and Calaloo, a spinach-like vegetable of Jimmy Buffett fame. We stopped at British playwright Noel Coward’s home, now a national park. Incredible views and his guest house was built in the 1600s by Henry Morgan the former pirate, then lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, as a lookout for pirates! The house was being restored but the bar in the guesthouse served aged Appleton rum so we forgot about the house.
We got a tip from a local to check out the Fern Gully, a 3-mile stretch of road that was a river until an earthquake in 1907 dried it up and they paved it over. Pretty enough we drove it twice!
We stayed at an older resort near Ocho Rios that is now used to train hospitality workers. Takes a minute to get used to seven waiters lined up watching you eat, just in case you need anything at all! Nearby is where the British routed the Spanish to seize Jamaica. (Henry Morgan was a lowly British soldier in that battle.) The next day we checked out the Dunn’s River Falls, made famous in the first James Bond movie, Dr No. You can climb up the falls and take as long as you want, about two hours for us. Fortunately, there was no cruise ship in so we did not have the huge crowds we saw in pictures. Only one spot was crowded and we went to the far right and had it to ourselves. Very fun, only one fall each! Though Tess’ did leave a nice hip bruise… Remarkably, it’s not terribly slippery and we had water shoes on. People start at different levels as the bottom by the beach was definitely challenging and probably dangerous. We kept saying, “If this was in California they’d never let you near it!”
We stopped at an old Anglican Church in Falmouth. The town was once so rich from the sugar industry that it had running water long before New York City. Later, we had lunch at the best view in Montego Bay before spending two nights on the south shore at another great little hotel outside Negril.
Made it to Kingston and of course the first stop was Port Royal, the real-life pirate city that was once the richest, and most debauched, place on earth. God sank it into the sea during a series of earthquakes on June 7, 1692, killing 75% of the population. As there isn’t actually anything to see above the water, we explored Fort Charles. One of four forts built along the long peninsula that juts all the way across the front of Kingston harbor to keep the Spanish at bay, it was built starting in 1650. Three of the forts were completely sunk in the earthquake of 1692. Perhaps building on sand was a bad idea, liquefaction and all? Anyway, the Spanish never came back but the Brits kept adding on until the early 1900’s. Interestingly, the 1692 quake sank this fort about four feet and the surrounding land silted up so much that the shore went from the base of the fort to several hundred yards away! Thus, the addition of the giant gun outside the fort in the 1880s. It was once level along with the ammo storage building but another big quake in 1907 tilted them dramatically. Fortunately for them, the British had given up and abandoned the place a couple years before that. Look closely and you can still see two of the mooring rings for ships to tie up to the wall. Hard to imagine that today as the water is so far away you can’t even see it.
On the map below, the gray area above the peninsula is what sank in 1692. Fort Charles is at the left end. The pirate Jack Rackam was captured and hung in Spanish Town (top left of the map) and his body was then hung from a gibbet for all to see on what is now called Rackam Key, below the fort.
Of course, we had to stop for a gin and tonic at the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club before spending a couple nights in Kingston. We tried to dine at a fancy steakhouse at Devon House, former home of Jamaica’s first millionaire (made his money in South American gold). However, I was denied entry for not having proper shoes! (I think it’s because I’m white…!!! LOL) Yes, we really do stand out in a crowd here. We did get to enjoy some Devon House “I Scream”, very good and very expensive.
Of course, one cannot go to Kingston and miss the Bob Marley house and museum! He didn’t live long, only 36 years, but his impact was profound. Very interesting place and an even more interesting life than we knew. An incredibly humble guy and we sure love his music. Legend, his greatest hits album is 27 times platinum (27 million copies sold, and counting). No photos allowed inside. We drove through the “trench town” neighborhood that he spent time in but it’s now just a shanty town slum. Nothing to see and definitely did not get out. Poverty sucks anywhere and it all looks the same in the third-world.
We wrapped up our trip with a drive up and over the Blue Mountains on a very sketchy road. Coffee country but no large estates, only small farmers. We topped 4,000′ and were into the clouds and beautiful countryside.
Back in Port Antonio, we checked out the ruins of the Folly House. It was the home to the Tiffany heiress and her husband, built in 1905. Was in the style of a Roman villa with over 60 rooms, electric lights, running water and an indoor salt water pool. They had the second car on the island, a Rolls Royce that they could only drive around their own property due to a lack of roads! The house was sold before WWI and has been abandoned for over 100 years.
Being Episcopalians, we have been looking forward to attending a few Anglican churches along the way. This morning we showed up with another cruising couple for the 0730 service…that started at 0800. Was a full two hours and quite interesting with the island slant on the music and liturgy. Examples of unusual-to-us language would be “lawd” for “Lord” in one hymn, “Lord Have mercy pon fi wi soul” in another and singing the Lord’s Prayer responsively to a very catchy tune, the “‘Buju Version”. We caught about 80% of the sermon due to the strong island accent but it was pretty neat to sit in such a huge church with giant doors open on three sides and rain absolutely pouring down outside. Made for a lovely temperature inside. Christ Church is 184 years old and seats 1500 on a hill very near the water.
Finally, one of our boat neighbors had told us about encountering a weird unmanned vessel north of the windward passage, where we are headed. Well, the Jamaican navy seized one and brought it in the other day and it is obviously a US Navy sail drone. They were asking all of us if we had any idea what it was! I’m guessing Uncle Sam is not going to be happy as there is nothing wrong with this one. Some of us pondered swapping our Starlink antennaes with it as it has the bigger, better marine version that none of us can afford. Pretty interesting to read about online. Apparently the Iranians have seized a couple over there and returned them minus the FLIR cameras on top.
We have found Jamaicans to be lovely people, friendly and helpful. We enjoyed the island and would encourage others to come here. After hearing stories of visitors never leaving their resorts and repeatedly warned about how dangerous it can be, we feel differently. There may be areas to avoid but it’s no different than anywhere else we’ve been. Beautiful people make up this breathtaking island. We feel so grateful to have enjoyed the Rasta feeling of the island.
We are off to the Bahamas tomorrow on what should be a two-day passage.
