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| Stormy weather that bypassed us in the Windward Passage |
Our first trip to Jamaica was on our honeymoon, and it was
Chris’ first taste of the Caribbean. Since we’ve now been travelling to the
Caribbean for over thirty years and cruising there for six, I’d say it made an
impression. Since we were going from the Bahamas to Panama, there was no way we
were about to bypass the island. It was a five-day passage, breezy off the bat
with great sailing, then motorsailing the last few days over glassy seas. We
felt rather like an aviary, picking up about a dozen birds, mostly small
migratory species that landed, rested for a while, then continued on their way.
Our most persistent guest was a brown booby that we picked up a day out of
Jamaica. It alternated fishing and resting on the bow sprit rail, and sat there
the entire night. Only when we closed on the channel into Port Antonio did it
fly off for good. Two birds flew below and tucked away into our basket of
baseball caps. Unfortunately, neither survived, but we consoled ourselves with the
thought that we had given them a warm, cozy place to pass on rather than a
precipitous drop into the sea.
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| Port Antonio, Jamaica and the beautiful mountains beyond |
