Jamaica
March 28—April 11,
2012
I set out
to find an adventure and ran into Winston on the next point east of the port.
He had sailed to Jamaica a year and a half ago, not finding any reason to
leave. Winston had developed an interest in permaculture[1],
and showed me his endeavors in creating a sustainable, locally-producible
protein supplement for livestock. He grows “soldier flies” using waste products
such as cow manure, with the intent of eventually harvesting the flies’ larvae
for feed. The incentive for such a product arises from the rising cost of commercially-produced
feed. As the founder of UrbanFeedCo[2],
he is refining the growing process and hoping to market it to local farmers.
Apparently there is also interest in using these insects to create bio-diesel.
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| Soldier fly larvae |
A few days
later I set out with some new friends Pedro and Sophie, and we met John on the
street. John is from New York but has lived in Jamaica for the last 20 years,
and has run a few restaurant-bar businesses on the island. The house he rents
is in the country a 40-minute drive east of Port Antonio on a grassy lot that
overlooks the rough coast below. From the house John keeps a bar and restaurant
serving excellent food. He probably has the most diverse menu around; Jamaicans
like Jerk chicken, rice and festival (a fried white bread). John served us some
home-fermented banana- and apple wines, and five of us headed off for a drive
down the coast.
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| John Maire at work |
Upon
reaching Boston Bay we met several surfers that lived in tents on the beach,
some of which ran a surfboard-rental business out of a rickety shack. Apparently
the bay brings some of the best swell in all of Jamaica. Our next stop was at
Blue Lagoon, an indentation in the coast where freshwater inputs from streams
and create a 4-inch layer of fresh water atop 150 feet of seawater. We swung
from a rope and the numerous overhanding tree branches and dove in. After
collecting some small oysters we headed back to Port Antonio.
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| Blue Lagoon |
Work
progressed slowly on San Miguel but
after scraping the remaining antifouling paint off we applied three new coats,
had a broken metal piece holding the rudder shaft in place re-welded, removed
the old rudder bearings and installed the new ones, reassembled the rudder
system and lifted the boat back into the water. Shortly after leaving the
autopilot system failed, and later that night while motoring during light
winds, the water pump on our diesel engine did something like explode. The
housing of the pump had corroded from the inside out creating a gaping hole and
causing coolant to spray out over the engine compartment. That was when we
turned around and sailed for Kingston; our adventures in Jamaica were not over
yet.
I had
wanted to visit Kingston ever since arriving in Jamaica a couple weeks before.
As a reggae music enthusiast I had hoped to hear live roots reggae. Francois and
I had the impression that the city had reggae bursting out of its ears; the
city minted more records than any other in the world, Jamaicans had so much
reggae to choose from that they were only satisfied with one artist for a few
weeks, and the streets were positively churning with live concerts. But our
findings were slightly different from our expectations.
I spoke with quite a few locals in
Port Antonio about Kingston: almost everyone was horrified and implored me not
to go. Apparently the city was extremely poor, people would surround me and ask
for money, beat me up, or even kidnap me. Of course then I heard from other
more open-minded Jamaicans and foreigners who recommended the trip. In any case
I was happy for our unexpected stop in the city.
The marina we landed in was across
the bay from Kingston and the first thing I did was visit Port Royal,
apparently the wealthiest city in the world until 11:40 AM on June 7, 1692 when
a catastrophic earthquake destroyed the city and left it partially submerged
underwater:
“Once called ‘the richest and wickedest city in the world,’ Port Royal
was also the virtual capital of Jamaica. To it came men of all races, treasures
of silks, doubloons and gold from Spanish ships, looted on the high seas by the
notorious ‘Brethren of the Coast’ as the pirates were called. From here sailed
the fleets of Henry Morgan, later lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, for the
sacking of Camaguey, Maracaibo, and Panama—and died here, despite the ministrations of his Jamaican folk-doctor.
Admirals Lord Nelson and Benbow, the chilling Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach, were
among its inhabitants. The town flourished for 32 years until at 20 minutes to
noon, June 7, 1692, it was partially buried in the sea by an earthquake.”
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| Original Tuff Gong Recording Studio |
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| Anderson works with a student at the Caribbean Maritime Institute |
How we repaired the water pump on San Miguel’s engine was indirect and coincidental.
I had met Fritz, the Executive Director of the [3]Caribbean
Maritime Institute while hitchhiking down the road toward Port Royal a few days
before. After hearing of our problem, he generously offered to help (or at
least to put off the problem to some of his staff). The institute was just next
door to the marina, and when we arrived several of the staff immediately got to
work on it. We rode into Kingston to get the proper electrode for their arc
welder, and then a man named Anderson did the welding. We cut new gaskets out
of some questionable paper material and then later also applied a silicone
gasket maker to ensure a proper seal. We installed the pump, and after some
initial alarming noises from the engine it began running as usual. On April 11,
for the last time we hoped, we set sail for Panama.
[2] See www.urbanfeedco.com
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| Machine shop at the Caribbean Maritime Institute |
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| Downtown Kingston |
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| Boston Bay |
