Jamaica
The friendliest people!
Leaving the Bahamas, we sailed SW though the windward passage (the “good” direction) and had a speedy overnight sail to Jamaica in mid-February. It is a gorgeous island with a dramatic landfall, a lush jungle framing the Blue Mountains and the constant tinkling sound of Greater Antillean grackles in the background.
We spent a month at Port Antonio and absolutely loved it. We had a short visit here before on our 2015 passage from Panama to Florida and realized that four days was not enough. We were happy to return and took advantage of the prime location of Errol Flynn Marina.
The marina grounds are connected to a lovely public beach with old jungle that was excellent for morning birding.
There is a park and promenade on the waterfront for event walks and an ice-cream stop and town is the next block over with most anything you might need.
First things first, we headed to Piggy’s for some jerk chicken & Ting!
The absolute best part of Jamaica were all of the friendly residents. We got warm smiles and greetings everywhere we went. They would say “we like you guys!” (meaning visitors). They were especially happy to see us over and over again and to hear that we were staying over many weeks to take-in daily life in their country.
We had heard stories of aggressive hassling at major tourist spots such as those frequented by cruise-ship passengers. In fact, a few sites (like the Blue Lagoon) were shut down by the government to try and break up that pattern. I only experienced one situation where we were hassled by someone who would follow us whenever we walked outside of the marina.
Good intentions or not, the attention wasn’t welcomed after this person kept showing up wherever we went. The hassle was much worse on WhatsApp, as I had exchanged numbers for a possible tour. We might have normally taken him up on a tour, but instead had to ask him to stop following us.
This situation was the exception BY FAR. I mention it not to complain, but to add a dose of reality into landfalls for others who may be cruising this route or similar ones.
Absolutely everyone else was openly friendly to us and generous, at the markets offering tastings of the BEST fruit, the street food vendors and just every day pedestrians. This isn’t always the case in countries we visit, so the hospitality was notable here.
This person’s open attitude says it all, as he asked me to take his picture during one of our walks and posed for the camera. I took this with my iPhone and then got out my long lens for the cover photo. Iconic Jamaica!
Iconic Jamaica!
It is here in Jamaica that I booked my first “official” birding tour. Jamaica has 29 endemic birds, which is an incredible number for an island of its size. Exploring with Arrowhead Birding couldn’t have been a better choice for my first bird tour.
The owner Ricardo is not only the top bird expert in the country, but couldn’t be nicer and more generous. He had me scheduled on my 2-day tour with one of his guides, but offered to pick me up early one morning from the marina to see nocturnal species since he was near Port Antonio. Not only that, but after our tour he delivered us a bag of coffee to Kingston on his way home from a large group tour.
Local knowledge is essential for finding habitat, regional bird ID and behavior observation. I love all aspects of birding and seeking out experts brings an educational aspect that I really enjoy.
I also think it adds another dimension to the countries that we visit, since we often go to very natural, untouched places that you might not be able to see otherwise.
In this 2-day tour, we explored a rural area in the countryside and the fabulous Blue Mountains. It was coffee harvesting season, which made the scenery all the more special. Roger was our guide. He was born and raised in the Blue Mountains and knew them like the back of his hand.
Not only did we find all Jamaican endemic birds along with many other Caribbean species over the two days, but I learned a lot from him and his “chill” birding approach.
He is a very intuitive and natural person and we thoroughly enjoyed his company. He also knows all of the plants and people in the Blue Mountains and we had some very nice local stops for meals, which were just small structures tucked into the curves of the winding mountain roads.
At this point, we had the somewhat sudden news that Mark’s father had passed away. We booked flights out of Kingston to go to Michigan and pay our respects with family.
It was a sad time, but we’re thankful for all of the quality time spent visiting with him each year and that our lifestyle allows this flexiblilty.
It was snowing there and we realized that this was the first time we’d seen snow in over 15 years! That should last us another 15 yrs…
Back in Kingston, Keith and Jaimie joined us in a rental car at the most lovely AirBnB.
We took advantage of rental cars for a Price Smart run and a bit of touring in our remaining time in the country.
There are tons of waterfalls in the island, so one day we headed to the other end of the island to a more popular one, Dunn’s River Falls. There were plenty of tourists visiting, for good reason, since it was gorgeous. The other one we visited, Nanny Falls, was quite spectacular in a different way, with a large drop and deep pool in a jungle-lined basin.
Another thing I wanted to do was get back into scuba diving. I’d been PADI certified in the mid-90’s. Even though I spend a majority of my time underwater, it had literally been over 15 years since I was underwater with a tank, since all of my diving has been free-diving while cruising!
Keith was game to go, so we dove with Lady G’Diver with a small group. It was just like riding a bike and I enjoyed the extra bottom time and depth that scuba offers. I took my TG4 camera with a case and strobe for a small footprint to test it out.
Our next destination was the Cayman Islands and we prepared for our next overnight sail on a calm weather window.
A neighboring boat had left the marina a few days earlier in unfavorable weather and underpowered, and unfortunately ended up on the reef in the inlet, dreams dashed. It is always heart-wrenching to see a wreck, especially since he had just bought the boat and was bringing it to Jamaica for a refit.
At this point, I have some free time for a few more blog updates to get caught up to our current location (Guatemala). I’ll admit that since moving to Squarespace, the on-line blog editor is a little slower loading/formatting photos than I prefer to work with… so maybe now that we have Starlink things will load faster and I’ll be more motivated to stay current with updates!