The Log: Jamaica

Jamaica

March 28—April 11, 2012

Port Antonio is a small harbor town near the northeast corner of Jamaica. Our motive for stopping there was to replace the rudder bearings (which we assumed to be the cause of our shaky helm) and to paint the bottom. We hauled the boat out into the local yard and began the work, scraping the old paint off and pulling at the rudder bearings that refused to budge.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

Original Tuff Gong Recording Studio

Despite being advised against it, we took the public bus (which apparently harbored the worst sort of gangsters—sounds familiar, right?) to visit Kingston and locate coolant and some other parts we needed. The city is a sprawling concrete jungle, has some dangerous ghettos in Trenchtown and Spanishtown, and an uptown wealthy area including “New Kingston.” We visited the downtown city square where goods were laid out for sale everywhere and some rather unfortuante homeless were posted, then took a taxi to New Kingston. This area holds the Bob Marley Museum, consisting of one of Marley’s homes and a formerTuff Gong recording studio. At this point I saw ads for several reggae festivals that we had unfortunately missed or were scheduled for future dates. Anyone in a private car will pick you up if you stand at the bus stop and negotiate a price, so we rode back to downtown where we saw a sort of music parade sponsored by the giant cellular network, Digicel.

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.

[1] The development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.

[2] See www.urbanfeedco.com

[3] See www.cmi.edu.jm/