Come Back to Jamaica!

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.

Port Antonio, Jamaica and the beautiful mountains beyond