April 2009

What to do in Georgetown when your boat is broken: put out a call on the morning cruiser’s net. With about 200 boats in the harbour, someone else has had the same problem and has already figured out how to fix it. Toby on Duchess came through for me again. Pencil zincs come in standard sizes and should be available at Top to Bottom, the local hardware store. If not he had several sizes on board. I had no previous experience with pencil zincs. My old 1973 Atomic Four didn’t have any. They just made the steel so thick that it would take half of a century to corrode through. My new Universal M25XP diesel has all of the modern parts.

Top to Bottom had the zinc. I bought two to determine the correct size and then brought the wrong one back and exchanged it for a spare. Windsong was ready to sail. My right eye was still bothering me and my vision was very cloudy. It seemed prudent to visit the doctor again. It wasn’t. I waited five hours to see the nurse who told me to come back in an hour once she had made a phone consultation with the doctor. When I returned I was told that the doctor wanted me to fly to Nassau to see an opthamologist. By this point I was so frustrated that it seemed to me that it would be more convenient to die than to get medical attention in the Bahamas. It would cost me $200 for the flight and would hold me back two or three more days. I wasn’t sure what my health insurance would cover, and I had a similar eye problem a year ago and it simply cleared up with time. Screw it, I’d rather go blind than fly to Nassau!

On April 2^nd, with one eye open, I sang my weighing shanty and finally departed Georgetown bound for the south. I had kept in touch with Sea Star and Tregoning via SSB radio. They were now in Flamingo Bay, Rum Cay so I set sail to join them. I had a nice reach to Cape Santa Maria at the north end of Long Island. The autopilot required a bit of tuning to adapt to the new belt, but soon we were sailing along beautifully. At Cape Santa Maria waves from the ocean met those from Exuma Sound creating a confused sea and the wind died away in the shadow of the island. Soon the sea smoothed out and the wind came back but I had been knocked far too much to tighten up to the course for Rum. I fired up the iron genny with its new zinc and motorsailed the rest of the way there.

I picked my way through the corals into Flamingo Bay with one eye and I received a warm welcome from the waiting crews of Sea Star and Tregoning. In the morning we sailed around the island to the town of Port Nelson and the Sumner Point Marina. We had an early dinner in preparation for our passage to Samana. It was a 100 mile run to Samana and we needed good light conditions to pick our way through the coral to get out of Port Nelson and to make our way into the Propeller Cay anchorage at Samana. The solution was to depart in the late afternoon, sail through the night and arrive around 10 am the next morning.

We entered Port Nelson with the sun at our backs and sailed inshore of the reef. Tregoning decided to follow the cookie crumb trail on their GPS back and all the way around the reef. I decided to shave off a few tenths of a mile by following the marked channel through the reef. As I approached the channel it became apparent that what I was seeing visually did not jive with what was on the chart. I adjusted accordingly and made my turn into the channel. I quickly realized that Tregoning had the better idea. The sun was in my eyes, glaring off of the water making the corals invisible. I only had my inaccurate chart, a couple of buoys and what I could remember from approaching the channel from the north. Sea Star decided to follow me but stuck more to the plot line on the chart. Looking back at them I could see the corals perfectly, ahead was nothing but glare. I saw them heading straight for a coral head. I tried to motion to them to turn. All they could see was the sun’s glare. The batteries on my handheld VHF were dead, and I would have to leave the helm in the middle of all these corals to run to the ship’s VHF in the cabin. Instead, I motioned frantically and watched in horror as they crunched right into the head. Thankfully, she spun off easily and headed back the way we came following Tregoning. Pure luck allowed Windsong to negotiate the rest of the channel to rejoin Tregoning who had covered the longer distance in a much shorter time with their reliable path to follow. It was our first taste of how much the difficulty level in navigating had gone up since we left the extremely well charted Exumas.

We sailed off into the night and the wind quickly dropped forcing us to motor sail. Spot doesn’t like the sound of the engine any more than I do, and during the night she retreated to her private cabin on the cabin top under the dinghy. It seemed like an awfully exposed and motion filled place to be, but I remembered that as a kid, my favourite place was on top of the dinghy directly above where Spot was sleeping. It was nice, quiet, full of fresh air, and gave me a fantastic view of the entire horizon in front of us. It was only when I became the captain that I grew attached to my sheltered cockpit and the constant stream of data from my instruments. I slept in two hour shifts through the night and we scheduled a few check ins on the VHF. When I awoke in the morning, I scanned the horizon and there was not another boat to be seen. I made a call on the VHF and Alison of Tregoning reported that she had me in sight off of their port beam. I looked to starboard and there they were plain as day. Perhaps it was the fact that I could only really see out of one eye. Maybe it was that I hadn’t finished my morning coffee. But most likely, it was that I am a lousy look out!

In the middle of a radio conversation with Dan on Sea Star my mainsheet flew off of the traveller. I grabbed the sheet as it was running out of the sheet bag, pulled it in by hand and tied it off to a cleat. The bail attaching the bottom block to its shackle had broken where the metal had been folded during manufacturing. I rigged the boom vang in its place to complete the passage and planned to find a way to jury rig the mainsheet when we reached safe harbour.

Alison won the silk doublet and 100,000 maravedíes that Columbus offered as a reward for the first to sight land in the New World. Soon Samana could be seen by all, low on the horizon ahead. We were approaching from the opposite end of the island 180 degrees from Columbus’ course. Still, we had to imagine that we were looking at the New World, the way it was first seen by European eyes. (Of course, Bjarni Herjólfsson was the first European to lay eyes on North American when he spotted Labrador in 986. Leif Ericson used Herjólfsson’s observations to make the first landfall in Labrador in 1003, almost 500 years before Columbus’ voyage. And Portugese fisherman began to fish the Grand Banks of Newfoundland regularly in 1452. But everybody seems to ignore that, so, for the purpose of romanticizing our visit to Samana, I’ll give Columbus the credit for now.)

Columbus was probably the best dead reckoning navigator who ever lived, and he kept excellent records of his voyage. Still, he had no GPS to record the exact location of his landfall and many islands of the Bahamas look extremely similar. He did have a quadrant and an astrolabe on board for determining his latitude from the north star. Both relied on gravity, making them fairly useless aboard ship. He was not very familiar with celestial navigation and the only instrument he tried on his first voyage was the quadrant. He did not try it out until he reached Cuba and then he read the incorrect scale and decided that the instrument was useless. This leaves us only with his log to try to determine where he landed.

Over the centuries many scholars have weighed in on the debate as to where Columbus made landfall. The most influential was Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison who in 1942, plotted Columbus’ daily records of distance and direction travelled. Morison plotted these observations as if it they were railway tracks on a frozen ocean, making no compensation for currents or leeway. He concluded that Columbus must have landed at Watling Island. This belief was so strongly held, that Watling was renamed San Salvador in 1926 in honour of the name Columbus gave his first island in the New World. No fewer than three monuments are located on Watling claiming to mark the place where Columbus first set foot on shore. As part of the 1986 National Geographic team, Luis and Ethel Marden replotted Columbus’ observations using 150 years of pilot chart data on currents and compensating for the probable leeway of a 15^th century caravel. Their plot line ended at Samana Cay.

Rather than trying to compensate for uncertain currents and leeway over 1000 miles of open ocean, it would seem a lot easier to follow his logs through the islands of the Bahamas to Cuba and see which islands fit the pattern. Gustavus V. Fox, former Undersecretary of the U.S. Navy did just that way back in 1882. He concluded that the only way that Columbus’ sailing directions could take you to Cuba was if you started at Samana Cay. Morison had answered this by plotting a path from Watlings. It worked nicely, if Columbus’ men could row 20 or 30 miles in seven hours or less to explore San Salvador and, if history’s best dead reckoning navigator was absolutely miserable at judging distances. The only island in sight from Watlings is Rum Cay. Morison had this as Columbus’s second island, Santa Maria de la Concepcion, only Rum is less than half of the size of the island Columbus described. The coasts of Acklins and Crooked Islands, 20 miles south of Samana, match well with the log. From here, the Morison and Fox tracks converge. Morison had Columbus sail 18 miles to Cape Santa Maria at the north end of Long Island. Fox had him sail his reported 23 miles to end up at Adam’s Hole at the south end of Long Island. There is little doubt that Long was Columbus’ third island, Fernandina. Both scholars have Columbus then sailing to Fortune Island which he named Isabela. After this Columbus made his first useful fix placing himself 20 miles southeast of Cape Verde on Long Island and east-northeast of the north end of Fortune/Isabela. The 1986 National Geographic team led by Senior Associate Editor Joseph Judge had Control Data Corporation develop a computer program known as the Columbus Research Tool. This program back plotted Columbus’ track from this Cape Verde fix and arrived once again at Samana Cay. From Fortune/Isabela, Columbus sailed to the Jumentos or Crooked Islands, which he named the Sand Islands, and from there he went on to Cuba.

Tregoning, Windsong, and Sea Star approached Samana like a modern day Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. Our anchoring needs were a little different then those of 15^th century caravels. Columbus could not possibly have negotiated the reefs with his 50 to 60 foot ships, but they would have rode happily in the deep open anchorage of Columbus Bay. Our wee, frail, fibreglass craft needed to thread the reef for the relative calm behind Propeller Cay. Logic would have had the shallow draft Windsong lead the way, but Tregoning volunteered to go in first with the advantage of a bow look out. With a three foot sea and the wind behind us we inched toward the reef. Halfway through Tregoning’s stern jumped and Randall’s voice came over the VHF, "Abort!, ABORT!! We’ve touched!". The nimble little Windsong, still in the open sea, spun on her keel. Sea Star had entered the channel at it took her bow thruster and full reverse to turn her 44 feet in a sea of foam. As we headed out into the waves, I looked back at the stranded Tregoning in horror. How could we render assistance? It was far too deep to anchor and far too rough to launch dinghy’s and mount outboard’s. My racing mind hadn’t come anywhere near a solution before Tregoning began to move again and inched her way on into the anchorage.

Randall asked us to stand on and off while they anchored, launched their dinghy, surveyed the channel, and guided us in. I alternately smashed into the seas, soaking Spot in her refuge under the dinghy, and rolled sickeningly, as I ran down the waves back toward the reef. The only thing that could have been worse would have been hitting the reef and stranding on the coral in these seas. Randall and Alison surveyed and surveyed with their handheld depth sounder until they were finally able to find something resembling a channel. Windsong followed Tregoning’s dinghy, with Sea Star close on her tail, as we twisted and turned our way around coral heads. The track actually looked a lot like the chart just shifted over by a very important 100 yards! Once inside, our anchors splashed down, safe at Columbus’ first landfall in the new world.

The anchorage was calm compared to the seas outside, but there was a pretty significant surge. As a result we had to pay the standard price for cruising to out of the way locations: the out island roll. Windsong, either to do with her light displacement or her hull shape, rolled wildly compared to the other two vessels. Yes, you read that correctly. In the world of bluewater cruising, a C&C 30 is a light displacement vessel. The 41 foot Tregoning is 27,000 lbs. and the 44 foot Sea Star is 40,000 lbs. That is three and four times Windsong’s mass respectively.

We dove to inspect the grounding damage on Tregoning and Sea Star and were glad to only find scratches. I examined my broken mainsheet and was able to jury rig it by breaking away some of the plastic to create a place to reattach the shackle. Much relieved, we settled down to catch up on the sleep we missed on the passage.

In the morning we dinghied ashore to meet the locals. There are five Lucayan archeological sites along the lagoon pointing to a fairly large population of Lucayans when Columbus arrived. Thirty years later, a combination of introduced European disease and Spanish slavers had killed every last Lucayan on earth. During the Loyalist era, a fishing village and a sisal plantation were established on the island. All that remains today are the ruins of the fishing village and a few huts used by visiting fisherman and barkers from Acklins Island. Two barkers, the only current inhabitants of the island, were there to great us. Joe and Levon had crossed the 20 miles of open ocean from Acklins in an 18 foot boston whaler and were planning on staying on the island for a month. They would spend one day collecting Cascarilla stems. The stems were bundled up and placed in the ocean to soak for about a week. The next day they would remove the week old bundles and pound off the bark. This was accomplished by placing a large rock and milk crate in the centre of a blue plastic tarp. They sat on the crate and using the rock as an anvil, they pounded the stems with a club causing the bark to split away. The bark was allowed to dry for a day before being packed into large sacks. The bark sells for $8 a pound to Italy where they use it to make cologne and a liquor called Compare.

Being in the place where Columbus made his first landfall in the New World and claimed the land for Spain, gave me an urge to re-enact that first landing and claim the island for Canada. It was pretty ridiculous, but no less ridiculous than the fact that five centuries ago some guy from Europe landed on a well populated island, stuck a flag in the ground and claimed the place for his queen. My first problem was to create an appropriate standard for island claiming. This was accomplished by lashing my whisker pole and boat hook together to form a cross and dressing it with the Canadian flag, the South Port Burgee, and the flags of the countries I have visited on this trip as well as the flags of the next few countries I am heading for. The whole thing was disassembled and loaded into the dinghy. The next problem was to figure out where Columbus would have landed. I was pretty convinced from my research, that this was the correct island and it was pretty obvious that the best place to anchor a caravel was on the deep shelf outside the west end of the lagoon. In fact, the chart has a Columbus Bay waypoint located at the most likely spot. From his log, I learned that Columbus landed and was able to claim the island before the Lucayans arrived on the beach. This suggested that he did not enter the lagoon. The village covered most of its shoreline and the natives would have greeted him as he landed. Also, if I had just crossed 1000 miles of ocean to discover a faster route to Japan, so that I could claim the place and all of its gold for my queen, I would have made a beeline for the shore from my anchorage.

I dinghied to the Columbus Bay waypoint and headed straight for shore. I found the beach rimmed with a shallow reef. There was a little opening in the reef that I could manoeuver through to find myself nicely sheltered for run along the beach to find a good place to land. Soon I found the spot. If Columbus’ landing craft of choice was an Achilles inflatable, and he needed one ledge to balance his standard on, and another ledge to balance his camera on, there is absolutely no doubt that this is where he would have landed. I suspect that 15^th century longboats had slightly different handling characteristics. I really doubt Columbus could have made it through the opening in the reef, much less travelled along inside of it. Then again five centuries is enough time for a lot of coral to grow and for hurricanes to move enormous quantities of sand. There is very little chance that the island looked anything like it does today. In fact, Columbus reported it to have a lush forest with trees large enough that the Lucayans carved them into huge dugout canoes. Clearing of the land for timber caused most of the soil to wash away, and today it is hard to find a tree large enough to carve into a baseball bat.

I beached the dinghy, assembled my standard, and with all necessary declarations took possession of this land for Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada. Then I walked down the beach a long way in both directions to try to ensure that I head stepped in Columbus’ footprints. On my way back to Windsong, it occurred to me that it would be much easier to enter the lagoon in a 15^th century longboat than it would have been to manoeuver around the reef guarding the beach in Columbus Bay. Perhaps the Lucayans ran like hell when they saw Columbus coming and didn’t sneak back until he had concluded the island claiming formalities. With this in mind, I landed at first easy place inside the lagoon and went for another long walk in either direction to make doubly sure that I had set foot where Columbus first landed. There were no rock ledges in this location so I was unable to take any more pictures with my standard.

After the fun we had entering the lagoon by Propeller Cay, Dan and I surveyed the entrance at Columbus Bay and established waypoints for our exit. On April 8, Windsong lead the fleet as we picked our way back out through the coral. Even standing on my gooseneck and following our waypoints, I had a heck of a time finding the channel. Thankfully, the tide was high and we were able to float right over the corals. Soon, we were safely at sea bound for Great Inagua. Columbus’ log reports that on making sail, he saw so many islands that they could not be counted. As Acklins Island came into sight only the peaks were visible creating the illusion of countless islands. Later, we saw the Plana Cays, another contestant for Columbus’ first landfall, faint in the distance to the east. We sailed a lovely reach through the night and arrived at Great Inagua, the southernmost of the Bahamas in the late morning.

There was a tiny man made harbour at Matthew Town, Great Inagua, but the cruising guide described it as a death trap, so we anchored with the rest of the cruising boats out the open roadstead, referred to by the locals as "the stream". There was a nice swell, and Windsong once again demonstrated her proficiency at the out island roll. While anchoring I found three flying fish on the deck that must have accidentally landed on board during the night. I gave them to Spot, but she wanted nothing to do with them.

We dinghied into the small harbour. Inside we found two large wooden fishing boats being allowed to beat themselves to death on the concrete walls. A third fibreglass fishing boat of the same size was hauled up on the launch ramp with a broken back. We later learned that these were confiscated Haitian smuggling vessels. We had been told that we needed to have checkout papers from the Bahamas to check in to Jamaica, so we went looking for customs. We soon discovered that this was the friendliest island in the Bahamas. Just like in the Canadian Maritimes, if you ask for directions you get a ride wherever you want to go. We were driven to customs where we were informed that we had to bring the boats into the harbour to check out. Back on the street we asked for directions to good restaurant and were driven to the home of a woman who sells takeout out of her back door.

In the morning Dan and Kathy brought Sea Star into the harbour and checked out. In the meantime, White Magic, a Panmanian catamaran that was nearly as wide as the entrance to the harbour, called the Errol Flynn marina in our destination of Port Antonio, Jamaica. They were told that Jamaican customs was well aware that the Bahamas does not require you to check out of the country and that our Bahamian cruising permits were all they needed to see. With this in mind, the rest of us passed on entering "Death Trap Harbour". Dan and Kathy’s efforts were not in vain. Henry, the Park Warden, saw Sea Star’s rig in the harbour and stopped by to see if we would like to go on a flamingo safari. Faster than we could say yes, Sea Star was riding on her anchor back out in the stream, and all five of us were crammed into Henry’s pickup.

We started out driving along the dikes separating the ponds of the Morton Salt operation. The salt industry in the island dates back to at least 1803. During the mid to late 1800's salt prices reached an all time high. Matthew Town’s population grew to 7000 people living in the lap of luxury. They had horse drawn carriages, moonlight balls, French Fashions, and even a polo team. Prices plummeted and Matthew Town became a ghost town. In 1936 the Erikson brothers revitalized the salt industry on the island by mechanizing the operation and expanding it to become one of the most successful in the world. They were bought out by the Morton Salt Company in 1955. Today the operation is the second largest in the world consisting of 80 salt ponds covering 12,000 acres, producing over a million pounds of salt a year, and employing over 300 people.

After miles of salt ponds we arrived at Lake Windsor home to the western hemisphere’s largest breeding colony of about 60,000 pink flamingos. There were 1000's of the birds standing in long lines in the briny water. It seemed far too salty for anything to survive, but the flamingos, egrets, and many other species of birds were thriving, feeding on the brine shrimp that stained the water slightly pink and gave the flamingos their brilliant colour. Henry pointed out many species of birds, told us about dealing with poachers, and even found us a wild donkey.

Great Inagua is home to another hand wound, kerosene fuelled lighthouse just like the Elbow Reef Lighthouse in Hope Town. Unfortunately, it was Good Friday, the light was locked, and no one seemed to be giving tours. The mailboat was still running despite the holiday. They made us feel like real wimps by backing the 100 foot mailboat into death trap harbour then making a 90 degree turn inside before mooring. We took a dinghy in and found the mailboat tied up in the middle of the harbour with only enough room between both its bow and stern and the walls to slip a dinghy through!

We had one thing left to do before we could head for Jamaica: make sure Windsong had enough fuel on board incase we had to motor. The winds were predicted to be light so it was a very real possibility. There were only two gas stations in town. The one next to the marina with no coverings over the bottom half of the pumps was the only one that had diesel. The owner had gone off to buy dog food. We waited a while for him to come back before a truck stopped and the driver asked what we were waiting for. We told him and he asked us to climb in and drove us all around town looking for the diesel guy. No luck, but we did find his daughter’s boyfriend who unlocked the pump for us and sold us our diesel.

The forecast was good, so at 2pm April 11, Sea Star, Tregoning, Windsong, and Navy Blue, an Island Packet 38 we met at Great Inagua, set sail for our 44 hour run through the Windward Passage to Jamaica. It was a lovely beam reach and as night fell we could see the light of a Cuban lighthouse reflecting off the clouds. The wind died in the morning forcing us to motor for most of the second day. In the glassy calm, Tregoning spotted a marlin. Unfortunately, the fish disappeared before Windsong and Sea Star could reach the scene. The wind finally came back directly behind us around midnight. During the night I decided to try out the watchman mode on my RADAR. The default setting was to transmit for 5 minutes then standby for 15. I also set a guard zone so that an alarm would go off if anything came within a mile of me. This seemed reasonable and I didn’t give it much thought. During the night I awoke on my usual 2 hour intervals. At sunrise I went on deck and saw a huge RADAR target 1.75 miles off of my port quarter. 1.75 nautical miles sounds like a long way away until you look up and see a huge ship at that distance. It looks like it is right on top of you. Fortunately, she was going to pass safely astern of me. As she steamed past at 12 knots, I started to do some math. She could have covered my 1 mile guard zone in 5 minutes. Or in other words, she could have run me over three times before my RADAR even started transmitting. Lesson learned. I reset the RADAR to transmit for 1 minute and standby for 5, and extended the guard zone to 2 miles.

Around 9am on that second morning, the Blue Mountains of Jamaica loomed out of the mist. Their 7000 foot height was astounding after the low islands of the Bahamas. It was Easter Monday and we had heard that there would be no checking in because of the holiday. Rather than sit on my anchored boat flying a Q flag, I was happy to stay out on the ocean and lazily sail in. That was until I got down to 3 knots. I fired up the engine and watched the Blue Mountains get higher and clearer. Soon I was entering Port Antonio leaving the red and white striped Folly Point Lighthouse to port and Errol Flynn’s Navy Island to starboard. The shoreline was draped with the most amazingly lush vegetation, appearing even lusher when compare to the scrubby Bahamian desert plants. As I slid past the cannons of Fort George I heard something that at first I couldn’t believe, a reggae beat. I throttled back so that I could hear more clearly and sure enough, against all odds, Bob Marley was welcoming me to Jamaica.

As soon as I got my anchor down, I learned that the check in procedures would be taking place after all. Dan from Sea Star launched his dinghy and picked up the man from quarantine. When he was done with Sea Star, Dan delivered him to Navy Blue, and came to advise me to make Spot disappear. Their cat, Maggie, had conveniently hidden in a cupboard, so they stowed her kitty litter, toys, and food hoping to smooth the check in. When asked if they had any pets on board Dan started to open his mouth. The officer firmly told him to circle no on the form. I tossed Spot into the cockpit locker where she had hidden in the Jumentos, put the door on the cupboard containing her kitty litter and threw her food and toys inside. The quarantine officer came aboard and helped me to complete the forms. I had to state the number of people who had died during the passage, whether the number of illness and/or deaths exceeded what I would expect, and how many stowaways where discovered during the voyage. When it came to pets on board, I too was firmly ordered to circle no. Then he began to inspect the boat. The third place he looked was the cupboard containing the cat stuff. The kitty litter, cat food, and toys were officially ignored. The cat grass on the other hand was of great interest. I had a heck of a time trying to explain why I had grass hidden in my cupboard without admitting to having a cat that was officially not on board. When I told him that the grass was legal in Canada, he was satisfied and had me pay his fee, bring him back to shore, and raise my Jamaican courtesy flag.

Soon Presley and Hulk, two boat boys arrived looking for work detailing Windsong. I asked them for a price on waxing, since nothing I tried in the Bahamas could bring back my hull’s shine. I also asked them to find me a painter because Windsong’s name had almost entirely flaked away. No sooner had they gone, than the marina hailed and told me to hurry ashore because customs was waiting. Ashore I accepted a stern lecture on keeping people waiting then completed step two of three in the check in procedure. Step three would wait until morning when we met with immigration. In the meantime we were now allowed to go ashore and to check in with the Errol Flynn Marina. Whether you were anchored or moored in the harbour, you were required to pay the marina $12 dollars a day. In exchange you got wireless internet on your boat and use of the washrooms, showers, and pool. Hard to beat!

The crews of Sea Star, Windsong, and Tregoning headed into town and instantly met the hustlers. These guys are immediately your best friend and want to show you around their town for a price to be negotiated later. A guy was on us in a flash and introduced himself as Water Rat. He guided us to his uncle’s jerk chicken stand, then to a Chinese restaurant for vegetarian food. He was the local authority as he was a vegetarian himself. On the way back to the boats, we met a Rasta named Noel. He sold us some good, old school reggae with the guarantee that if we didn’t like it, "You can go to dat cop and tell im that a Rasta sold you baaadd reggae."

After a long refreshing sleep we all met Clive. Clive is a Rasta fisherman who lives in the mangroves next to the anchorage. He paddles around the harbour on the bamboo raft he uses for fishing using a split piece of bamboo like a kayak paddle. His dogs entertained Dan and Kathy by playing on the sandbar behind their boat while Clive visited all of the cruisers and tried to sell us Mangos.

My visit to Jamaica was going to be much different from my island hopping adventures in the Bahamas. It is reportedly not safe to go gunkholing along the Jamaican coast, and to complicate things, you are required to check in and check out of every port you go to. To simplify life, we decided to stay in Port Antonio the whole time, get to know the place well, and do trips inland by car.

Each day we would go ashore and be greeted by Noel with, "I make new reggae for you. Good, ol’ school reggae." Pretty soon Windsong was overflowing with Noel’s reggae CD’s. Water Rat showed us the best vegetarian restaurant in town: Mr. Dixon’s. The place had no sign so we would never have found it on our own. Downstairs was the servery were Mr. Dixon welcomed you in his James Earl Jones voice and dished out his vegan patties, stews, curries, and tofu. The special drink of the house was ginger beer so strong that it could burn your face off. Upstairs was the dinning room with louvered windows and a fan much needed in the 30^oC heat. Many of the Rastas are vegetarian, so vegetarian fare was plentiful. The Musgrave Market was filled with amazing fresh fruits and vegetables, most of which I had never seen. The ladies were happy to explain what there wares were and how to cook them.

We quickly learned that Jamaicans do not in fact speak English. Patios is the main language spoken on the street. It is English with a lot of syllables removed and a lot of slang thrown in. For example, eight is "a", $100 Jamaican is a bill, a drinking coconut is a jelly, and a bachelor’s potluck is a boat. Even the town has a different name in Patios: Porti. The media is all in English, so most people could speak English, though they found our accents to be almost impenetrable.

We also learned that you do not sleep much in Port Antonio from Thursday through Sunday. Loud reggae and hip hop music blared out over the harbour for most of the night. We went looking for the source of the music expecting to find an extremely happening dance club. Instead we found a small bar with a couple of pool tables and huge speakers directed out over the harbour. It was just my luck that Windsong ended up on the mooring nearest to the speakers. This proved to be nothing unusual. Most bars that we walked past had monster speakers out front for blasting music out into the street all night on the weekends.

Presley and Hulk brought Windsong back to an incredible shine. The trick, they told me, was to wash the hull with vinegar to strip away the salt buildup. How was a sweet water sailor to know? They also hooked me up with Johnny Black. I got a call one morning on the VHF.

"Windsong, Windsong, this is Shiver. I’ve been asked to relay a message to you: Your painter is on the dock."

Did my dinghy come untied? I looked out into the cockpit and saw the blue coils of my painter. I leaned out a little further and there was my dinghy. "Shiver my painter is right here on my dinghy."

"No, no, PAINTER, as in: man with brush."

"Understood, I’ll be right in." Oh man, the whole world just heard that on channel 16!

Johnny Black stripped off the old peeling paint, made some stencils and painted on a new name. After two days work he was about 90% of the way through the job, so I paid him 90% of the $70 he wanted. I soon learned that is not how you do business in Jamaica. Never give anyone more that 50% before the job is done. 90% was good enough for Johnny Black so he never came back.

My eye was feeling much better by the time I reached Jamaica, but now the other one was starting to act up. I visited the optometrist who gave me some antihistamine drops and recommended me to the opthamologist. He diagnosed me with iritis, sold me a new pair of glasses to replace my horribly scratched pair, and gave me some anti-inflammatory drops that cleared by eyes right up.

One day, we decided to go explore Navy Island. The island got its name from the British Navy barracks and storehouses that were once on the island. It was here, in February, 1793, that William Bligh unloaded his cargo of breadfruit at the end of his second, and far more successful breadfruit voyage. Bligh’s breadfruit trees can still be seen towering all around the town. The island’s next claim to fame was as the private retreat of Errol Flynn. Errol apparently lost the island in a poker game and it then became the grounds of the now closed Navy Island Resort. We landed at the resort dock and proceeded to the overgrown foyer. The flora had to be seen to be believed. We poked around the ruined hotel for a while then wandered off down the trail into the jungle expecting to meet David Livingstone any moment. Randal and Allison from Tregoning are retired botanists from the University of Florida so they gave us a running commentary on what we were seeing. Soon we found our way to Errol Flynn’s house, also in ruins. You had to imagine that many women were romanced here!

Another big difference from the Bahamas was the rain. In the final two months that I was in the Bahamas it rained once. The incredible vegetation and produce in Jamaica owed itself to the frequent biblical deluges of rain. By spreading a small tarp I could easily collect 10 gallons of freshwater in one downpour. It was lovely at first to have salt free boats, and rust free stainless, but the almost daily rainstorms quickly got old.

Walking down the street one day looking for the restaurant where I left my hat the night before, I was targeted by a hustler named Courtney. Courtney guided me all over town, helped me find my hat, and found me the wire and hose I needed for Windsong. Soon Courtney was visiting me everyday by walking to the fishing platform nearest my boat and calling out "Hamie, Hamie." He would bring me the newspaper and introduced me to local foods like Mangos, Sugar Cane, Jamaican Apples, and Drinking Coconuts. Each fruit or vegetable came complete with its name in English and Patois, as well as preparation instructions. All, of course, for a price. Eventually, Courtney told me his story. He emigrated to the United States with his mother in 1969 at the age of 16. He spent his late teens and most of his adulthood in Harlem until 2000 when he was busted for marijuana possession and deported back to Jamaica after 31 years in New York. He said he felt like he had been sent to another planet. He couldn’t relate to the people or how they lived and the best job he could find was acting as a porter at the farm store. His price usually included me making him a sandwich, because you couldn’t buy one in town.

When we first entered Port Antonio it was impossible not to notice the HSV Swift at the far end of the harbour. She was a huge futuristic US Naval Catamaran. The first officer, Dick, noticed that Sea Star was registered in his home state of Road Island, and invited us aboard for a tour. It turns out that she is what was once known as a privateer, a civilian vessel hired by the US Navy. The HSV stands for high speed vessel. With her four 9,000 horsepower jet drive engines she is capable of 40 knots. Her unusual catamaran hull causes her to slam brutally at high speeds earning her the nickname "Vomit Comet ". The motion is so bad that it throws equipment around, breaks sewage pipes, and makes old salts as seasick as greenhorns. Her bridge looked like the USS Enterprise. She is the first US Naval Vessel to be certified to go to sea without paper charts. There are so many backups for her backup electronic navigation systems, that paper charts are unnecessary. The four jet drives are computer controlled and linked to a joystick for manoeuvering in harbour. Push the stick sideways and she moves straight sideways. Push it forward on an angle and she moves forward on and angle. Rotate the stick and she rotates on her own centre. At sea, she is steered with a tiny thumbwheel, backed up by another joystick.

Our next adventure took place on a much lower tech craft. Errol Flynn saw the locals hauling bananas down the Rio Grande on bamboo rafts and thought a trip like that would be a fantastic way to woo the ladies. Soon a new industry was born rafting tourists down the Rio Grande. We booked a trip with Captain Reebo. He arranged a cab to carry seven of us, including the driver, up into the mountains to start our rafting. We all crammed into the small station wagon, two in the front seat, four in the back, and Captain Reebo in the trunk. With all the twists and turns, the drive was more exciting than some roller coasters. We staggered out of the car at the headwaters of the river to find our two, thirty foot long, bamboo rafts waiting for us. Dan and Kathy had one raft and Randal, Alison, and I would ride on the other with Reebo as our captain. We were able to purchase refreshments, Reebo rolled a large cigarette of the local brand, then we set off down the river. Locals swam out as we passed to sell the ladies flowers and all of us drinking coconuts. The riverside towered with breadfruits, bamboos, bananas, and so many other species of flowers and trees that we were once again thankful to be travelling with botanists. Reebo danced and sang Bob Marley, Harry Belefonte, and one of his own songs about peace and the corruption of George Bush, Tony Blair, and Saddam Hussein. He took our pictures, standing backwards on one foot while going through the rapids. He even gave me lessons and had me pole the raft for a while.

Back on my boat in Port Antonio I heard the sounds of a parade moving through town. I jumped in the dinghy and headed ashore to check it out. What I found was a New Orleans style funeral procession complete with dancing girls and a marching band playing And the Saints Came Marching In. The procession led me all the way around to the east harbour where I stumbled into the cricket match. From there it was a short walk to the Folly Point Lighthouse and The Folly itself. The Folly was once one of the grandest mansions in all of Jamaica, built in 1902 by Alfred Mitchell for his sweetheart. She refused to come to Jamaica and the house remained unoccupied until the roof collapsed from disrepair in 1935. When I reached the lighthouse, the keepers wife invited me in, and their dog gave me a tour of the beautifully kept grounds.

On most days it was too hot to do anything but lie around on your boat until the late afternoon when we would head ashore to explore the town. This made our timing perfect to visit the Titchfield High School just after school had been let out for the day. I had seen the school uniforms while walking around town. The boys wore military khakis complete with epaulettes, and the girls wore navy dresses with pleated skirts reaching well below their knees. I was anxious to see the school because it was built inside Fort George. The fort was built by the British in 1729 to protect against Spanish invasion. The cannons still sit on the walls, the ammunition house is used to store spare desks, and the main portion of the school is located in the blockhouse/barracks that formed the back side of the fort.

On another run ashore Dan, Kathy, and I stopped by the farm store to purchase kitty litter for our cats. An SUV was parked in front of the store. Courtney was on duty loading supplies into the SUV for an extremely slim elderly lady. When he got a moment he took me aside and told me that she was Errol Flynn’s wife.

I can’t even remember the first time I heard the story of the mutiny on the Bounty. All my life Captain Bligh has been synonymous with poor leadership and overly harsh discipline, while Mr. Christian was the archetype for the treacherous best friend. I read the book, saw the movie, and even found out that one of my ancestors, George Halpin, worked with Bligh to build the Bull Wall in Dublin harbour. Here I was where Bligh had unloaded his breadfruit, staring high, high up into a towering tree that had been carried here by Bligh himself aboard the HMS Providence. There was just one thing about the whole story that I had always wondered about and was still bothering me: what the heck is a breadfruit and what does it taste like. I resolved that tonight I would dine on breadfruit.

On the way through the marina I mentioned by plan to Kathy who was sitting in the shade writing for her blog. Captain Reebo’s brother was hanging around the marina and overheard. He promised to bring me to the place with the best breadfruit in town. I had been planning on going to a breadfruit stand that I had seen along the East Harbour. I figured that going with Captain Reebo’s brother might be a little more interesting, though I was sure it was going to cost me. The first thing he did was bring me to the market to buy a breadfruit. This was the first red flag: the place with the best breadfruit in town requires you to bring your own breadfruit! Then we started heading for the East Harbour. He told me he was bringing me to a great vegetarian restaurant that cooks everything in coconut milk. I asked if it was Mr. Dixon’s. No. We kept heading toward the East Harbour. Was it going to be the breadfruit stand I had seen?

The fishermen have their camp set up along the beach of the East Harbour between the road and the ocean. As we walked past their tin huts, Reebo’s brother struck up a conversation in Patios with a farmer who was selling vegetables out of the window of a hut opening onto the sidewalk. The farmer agreed to cook up the breadfruit for me. We crawled under the railing and down into the shoulder width alley between the shacks. The farmer stoked up a fire in a tire rim and threw the breadfruit straight into the flames. He got out some crates for us to relax on and I was introduced to Moses, the Rasta fisherman. Reebo’s brother then asked me for $1000 J ($15 CDN) to pay the farmer for the cooking, to get some other vegetables to go with the breadfruit, and to get a little something for the peoples. Reebo’s brother disappeared and returned a moment later with rum and local cigarettes for everybody else, and juice for me. Moses showed me the dent in his head and the missing teeth from his motorcycle accident then took me down to the beach to show me his boat. He explained how they stay out on the ocean all night huddled under blue pastic tarps, and pointed out two guys who were heading off to string a net across the harbour. Back at the campfire Reebo’s brother put on some reggae and Moses danced away to the pounding beat.

As night began to fall, an extremely dark, slender girl, with waist length beaded braids slinked past the campfire wearing 6 inches of denim miniskirt and a little red frilly top. Every time she passed conversation at the campfire faded away as our male tongues lost their muscle tone. Soon she walked up to the campfire, looked angrily at me then uttered something to the others in Patois that I took to mean "What the f#%$ is the white man doing here?" Reebo’s brother explained that I had bought rum and local cigarettes for everyone. She helped herself to some local cigarettes and instantly warmed up to me. She struck a pose that revealed a bit more of the very little her outfit left to imagination and introduced herself, improbably, as Ebony. She poured herself onto the crate next to me and struck up a conversation. She asked me how old I thought she was. I guessed 18. She laughed hysterically because I was so hilariously far off: she was 19. I was amazed at how similar teenagers are everywhere. She showed me her cell phone and complained about how bored she was.

It takes a long time to cook a breadfruit and soon Captain Reebo’s brother needed another $1000 J get a little something more for the peoples. He leaned close and told me that for the right price I could bring Ebony back to my boat. If I wasn’t comfortable with that, for a little more he could find us a place in one of the fishermen’s huts. I thanked him for the kind, kind offer and said that I would stick with the breadfruit.

At long last, the breadfruit was served steaming and smoky with a side of calalloo. The breadfruit looked like white cantaloupe and had the texture and flavour of a nice smoky baked potato while the calalloo was a green leafy vegetable that tasted like a mild spinach.

Back in the harbour the next day, the crews of Tregoning, Windsong, and Sea Star rented ourselves a minivan and found Steve, another cruiser to look after Spot and Maggie, Sea Star’s ship’s cat. Tomorrow we would be off on our new adventure up in the Blue Mountains.