As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook.
- Joseph Conrad -
JAMAICA
With five hard-core fun days in Santiago, we went to bed early. Annina said: "Let's go tomorrow". I could have easily said: "No, let's stay." The sky was grey and drizzly, occasionally breaking into rain proper. There was no internet for forecast but I had gathered from the SSB that it was going to be calm and wet, 100 Nm of motoring... I had a few wines, went to ask the marina staff to arrange the check-out tomorrow. Then it was straight to bed.
The next day was dark with rain. The customs didn't arrive until 2 PM and we finally got underway at 3 PM. Blue smoke was bellowing out from Aliisa's exhaust. Is the engine ok? Not sure, but the smoking has gradually increased and now reaching a level where I feel embarrassed about it. Annina's tiredness had broken into a flu. My tiredness had broken into a hangover. Let's go.
I didn't take a picture of him, but the angry gold toothed pushy Paladar (home restaurant) owner looked a little like Jason here when I cancelled our dinner with only one hour notice.
Annina stayed in bed, as always. Thanks to the modern fabric technology, I was able to get wet both inside and outside of my rain jacket. The AIS had stopped working, or so it seemed. A few ships went past but showed no presence on the screen of our little Northstar. I shortened the alarm time down to 15 minutes. I still needed to sleep a little bit. Every now and again.
Around midnight, I awoke to the auto pilot alarm. We're off course. Why? I reset the course and stay up. The feeling was eerie, thick cloud was hanging almost to the surface, light rain, no waves, no moon. Just a wet darkness with a light shining from the masthead. I noticed a few strange noises, or perhaps I was hearing things. "Squeak, squeak". There was a continuing squeaking noise, not rhythmical but a fast, restless group of squeaks, like little under-world creatures screaming for help. I looked up and saw something flying around the masthead. Lots of them, tiny tiny tiny birds? Large moths? Hummingbirds? Jesus! We're 40 miles off shore and it's raining. Why are these little creatures out here?
No lightning. Good. It's just really hard to know what's in these cells. Could be 50 kn of wind. Could be no wind at all. Could be lots of electricity. Could be just bucketloads of rain. With a fairly open cockpit and a small boat, the wetness always finds its way everywhere, including the soul.
The auto pilot went off course again, the compass started to show an easterly course to the west and a westerly to the east. No amount of turning it on and off, resetting etc. would help. I switched to the small wheel pilot. The little 5" chart plotter was jamming up, turning the boat symbol up north and not showing speed or course. I took a torch and checked from the back of the boat that we're moving. Engine was roaring, wet, dark, squeak squeak continuing from the sky. Down below the fixed Garmin 152 had been showing no satellites and a message: "antenna input is shorted" for some time. I took out a spare Garmin 72 hand-held and brought it up under the spray hood. Less than five minutes later its screen went blank. The wheel pilot slowly turned Aliisa toward Haiti. It was like evil force was upon us. I did what anyone would do in that situation: I poured myself a glass of wine.
Something to get used to, as we plan to spend the wet season in Panama...though the jacket is a waste of time. Better wear the shampoo and body wash.
After half hour of fighting with the wheel pilot's settings, it finally jammed the whole belt and locked the wheel. After a few 360's I had to grab the wheel both hands and crank it free. We were down to zero auto pilots but still one gps to go. I grabbed my oldest hand-held, a 12-year-old Garmin II+. It kept working. The old stuff is good. The new stuff? 10% manufacturing, 90% sales and marketing. Back to the story: I was tired and dazed and exhausted. Some plankton was flashing in the water, the strange "moths" kept squealing up around the mast. All electronics seemed to be failing and the boat wanted to turn towards Haiti.
The evil creature and his evil friends came to put a spell on me and all our electronics.
Never mind Bermuda triangle. We were in what I called the "voodoo triangle", approximately 19N, 76W - the point with the shortest possible distance to Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica. I sat down behind the wheel. I heard something behind me and turned around. A little something on the back deck. One of those "moths"? A tiny little bird, looking very angry - or in my current state of mind - very evil. I didn't dare to disturb the little creature, besides I had other things to do. Keep an eye on our last remaining gps and hand steer to Jamaica.
Time to hit the road again, this time with Phillip.
Not surprisingly, I was pretty cranky and tired when arriving to Port Antonio 12 hours later. Annina - despite having a flu and therefore a good reason to stay in bed - bore the brunt of my frustration, again. It has become a typical drama on the day of arrival. I always feel shitty and disappointed in the fact that she has no interest in sailing and has turned out to be such a passenger. After blowing off steam for a day, I calm down and accept the status quo. A man must blow steam some times, yeah? After all, it's mostly just hot air. I love my wife, more than anything in this world.
Port Antonio, Jamaica
It's about time we get to Jamaica in this story. So, we got to Jamaica. To be perfectly honest, half the pleasure of this little detour we did from Curacao was to be able to say the lovely sounding exotic words: "Cuuuuuba", "Jaaamaaaica maan" and then add the even better sounding "Carrrtahhhhheena" to the end. The sad truth is, that I was again a little exhausted with travelling and not having the most positive frame of mind and the most cheerful of attitudes for the good Jamaican people. Particularly those who approached me only to say: "Respect, maan. Can you give me money". Yeah, respect, maan. No money. Perhaps not in those exact words, but the very first impression of the country was that the locals somehow felt that instead of them working, I should support them just for the joy of doing so. The official slogan of the country's tourism office - perhaps the government - is Out of Many, One People. It's almost right, despite the misspelling. Or perhaps it's the wonderfully Jamaican accent that got me: Out of Money, One People. Basically, it boils down to many people out of money.
But let's not jump ahead of things. What the hell, lets jump ahead! Let me go to the point and share my own personal Jamaican experience with you. You must understand, that it's based on one week in the marina in Port Antonio, one short day of driving around the local countryside and the interactions that took place during those times. My opinion will inevitably include my attitude, my moods and my prejudices. As far as Jamaica is concerned, I can only describe the people that I met. After the disclaimers, I better go to the point:
The eastern interior of Jamaica was incredibly lush. Hours of driving would not get you out of the jungle. Life here is much like in many other tropical places. Quiet and mainly focused on gardening, picking and selling the produce. I could see myself calming down in an environment like this, not worrying about the world and knowing that although I have little, the land will keep me alive. (And we all know that to be a totally naive and romanticised view of the hard life in rural third world tropics.)
About 30 seconds after securing the boat in the marina berth, we were greeted by the marina manager. I extended my hand but he could not shake it before quarantine has been on board and cleared us in. It was about 3.30 pm. Customs and Quarantine came quickly and wanted to leave even quicker. My pen was smoking as I did my best to fill five forms in 5 minutes. The officials - who stepped with their dirty shoes straight on our cockpit cushions - were not unfriendly but rather indifferent, though I managed to get a few little smiles out of them too. Never mind, the officialdom is not supposed to be entertainment. For the first time since leaving Australia I was asked about a septic tank. No, I don't have one and we must use the facilities in the marina. Ok.
Trust me, the Jamaicans don't muck around, they mean what they say and they have a clear way of saying it. Among the paperwork was a port authority warning that said: "If you use your toilet in the Port Antonio area, the consequences include imprisonment, a 10 000 US dollar fine and the boat may be confiscated. No shit, maaaan! The next day another yacht arrived with a dog on board. The rule was simple, the dog must not leave the boat, not even step on the marina dock. "If it does", the quarantine office told them, "we'll put him down". Jahmaaan, respect. At least they didn't say: "We'll put you all down, maaaan".
Grey and green was the order of the day. This, by the way, is not a river. Usually.
I had to visit the local police station for immigration. Lo and behold, there was a man eager to help me, right at the marina gate! How lovely of him. John talked almost all the time and behaved like a long lost brother of mine. He had the shakes and needed a fix. I bought him a beer to ease the pain. John waited for me while I did immigration. The police had the same blaaah attitude with unfriendly mannerism. I didn't complain, though, such was the size of his gun and I didn't want him to put me down. Afterwards John walked me back and informed me of some good Blue Mountain coffee that he sells. (He buys it at the correct price and sells it to me with a 200% mark-up. That's business, man. I admire that.) He even gave me gift: enough dope for a couple of joints. Of course it was appropriate, that the very first person who's hand I shake in Jamaica, puts ganja into mine. "Welcome to Jamaica, maaan", John said cheerfully.
It was only fair that I give him a gift to, in cash. Though we don't smoke, I was too tired from our trip to turn him down. I put some money in his hand to get rid of him. In all fairness, he was a cheerful and friendly chap. Really. He tried to make a few dollars, he was a breeze to get along with and easy to talk to about life and family and stuff. But right then and there, I just needed to go home and rest.
Back in the marina, it was time to crack open a cold Cuban beer and take a breath. I had to come to terms with US $22 per night plus water and power. Only 10 bucks cheaper if anchoring out. No wind, no sun, no power, no internet. Bugger. We stayed in the marina. Despite all this negatively toned text, there was nothing really wrong with the place. Green rolling hills under a moist blanket of cloud defined the geography already from miles away: Beautiful, simply beautiful. Though rain kinda puts a damper on things, everything around us was green and lush, alive. The people? Hmmmm. They were friendly ok. The town was a little rough and ready, I didn't feel perfectly comfortable there but there was no issue with safety. The marina was not surrounded by barbed wire and there was no sign of any problems with security. Aliisa remained - as always - open at all times, even when we were in town. Port Antonio was just fine.
Joe (right) brought Santtu, a Finnish backpacker, to meet us after finding out that we're from Finland. (Well, I'm an Aussie, ok?) Unfortunately our friendship only lasted one night. Santtu had toured the country extensively and still carried the fearless spirit that I once had - about 15 years ago...
The marina seemed to prefer the big bucks (yeah, right. And who doesn't?) and while there was a number of cruising yachts there, the main market appeared to be large game fishing boats and motor cruisers. "You know, yacht's don't really want to pay that much 'cause they're out there for a long time, but the motor boaters, jeez, they don't blink an eye forking out tonnes of cash all the time, they're used to that", the marina staff told me. The local boys allowed and authorised to solicit work in the marina knew that too. The big money is with the big white motoryachts. And if you live with the "trickle-down" effect, you'll go looking for big waterfalls and big trickles. Some young american skipper had just arrived from Panama, delivering a 60 ft game fishing boat. A few days and 40 000 litres of fuel. He was planning to do a day trip to Turks and Caicos next - cruising at 30 kn. (Aliisa averages about 500 litres per year, cruising at 4-5 kn.)
Clive made a quiet entry by the sea each morning, paddling his bamboo raft, carefully checking for any marina management that would chase him out. Had I been a bit younger and alone, I'd gone bush with him. Well, that's what I thought anyway, until I saw him in his drunken stupor one night. Respect, love, peace and unity, Clive. See you in the next life.
Port Antonio Marina had a quiet bar area and a swimming pool. Quiet, as it was mostly closed. The bunch of cruisers gathered once a week for cheap drinks. Jamaica in May was at the cross roads of cruising routes. Yachts were departing east to North Atlantic and Europe, west to Guatemala and Honduras, SW to Panama, south to Colombia, north to Cuba and the US.
Instead of giving away pennies to those who are staring at your pockets all the time, we decided to spend US 100 on a day out with a guide. Ok, I still gave out some pennies to some people - based on the face-factor. (Remind me to come back to the "face factor". In fact, I should start demanding a photo with every person that I give money to. Afterwards we can analyze the face factor - what made me give to them, and not to others...)
Touring Jamaica
Phillip was a young man with a gentle face, happy and friendly manners and best of all, he spoke english that we too could understand. The only problem was the timing. We picked the wrong day. Thanks to the marina wifi I was fully aware of the forecast being for more rain and local flash flooding. Thanks to my eternal optimism, I ignored it. We went to sit in an air-conditioned vehicle for 6 hours, watching flooding rivers, being turned away from flooded roads and being turned away from flooding waterfalls. Phillip did his best but there's not too much you can do with the flooded countryside. Except one thing. Go and eat Jerk chicken and pork in Boston Bay.
The Jamaican Maroons, hiding in the bush around Boston Bay, Portland, are said to have invented Jerk - the most famous Jamaican flavour. The produce on the BBQ was originally feral pigs and later Jerk Chicken has become the better known variety. Cooked very slowly on a wooden BBQ made of a tree that cawithstandnd the heat and that grows only in this area, the runaway slaves were able to have a good feed without fire or smoke giving away their location. That's how the story goes, anyway. People from all over Jamaica come to this Jerk shop on the weekends.
(The island's best surf-spot is also here, ask for Odale, Tristan, Dorran or Junior in the "Cool Out Surf Camp" or e-mail them on cooloutsurfcamp@gmail.com. Phone 876 861 5484. The boys are all certified instructors and members of the Jamaican national surf team. I promised to send them dudes some business, so say hello from the Aussie sailor)
We had to cut our day short as the rain threatened to close more roads. Phillip gracefully accepted my offer for a reduced rate and all parties - I hope - parted not too disappointed. If you ever find yourself in Port Antonio, tell the office to call Phillip to take you around. Actually, do whatever you bloody want. There may be tonnes of other cool local dudes around. Like Joe. Yeah, Joe. Respect, Peace, Unity, Love, Lend me some money.
Welcome to Portland parish, Jamaica's wet tropics. Phillip was a real gentleman and even waived some of the price for our short and wet tour around the country.
Joe was another helper, a nice and happy chap, wheeler-and-dealer, a few things going on business-wise, you know, the kinda guy that likes you very much very quickly. The kinda small business man that we admire in our own culture too. I still feel that he was a genuine number. In fact, I feel that all these kinda guys are genuine numbers. Like the disgraced ex Finnish prime minister Anneli Jäätteenmäki, Joe was as honest as he could. We all do the best we can. My honest mistake was to lend him twenty bucks (US). His honest mistake was not to be seen again. We had ample time to get to know each other and I even invited Joe onboard. Therefore I apply the old saying about money here: "If you lend money to a friend and never see him again, it was probably worth it". You know what I mean?
Clive, Presley and a few other boys were having a little competition with getting jobs from yachties. Presley was most unimpressed when I mistakenly gave our gas bottle to someone else to be filled. Yep, I had promised it to Presley. I felt bad about the mistake. Life in Jamaica seemed hard and the people hardened by it. The toxic battle between the two ruling parties has sowed bullets and seeds of hatred on the streets of Kingston for decades. The "trickle down" effect works here too. People know they have to be tough to survive. And the month of May in the year of 2009 was not the easiest of economic times here either.
Arriving in Port Antonio, Jamaica
So, Jamaicans were good people. Like people everywhere. But the feeling was one of on-going pain and anger. Frustration and battle for survival. The happy faces were particularly happy because they sensed money in my pocket. This happens everywhere - even in Helsinki - but here the battlers were many and the helpers were few. I have always defied the cynical advice of "don't trust anyone" when travelling. But in Jamaica, It's good advice. Be prepared to play the game and feed them the same amount of little lies they feed you. Each man for himself. Never say that you've been here for two days, always make it at least two months. And then, always keep your back door open for those genuinely nice people that are mostly in the countryside and rarely approaching you on the street near the markets. You see, 15 years of travelling and I'm finally learning the basics!
Someone asked me if I would go there again? Yes, I would definitely go there again. In fact, I'm pissed off that we didn't spend more time in Jamaica. Why didn't we? We were tired of intensive travelling. Maybe my definition of "intense" is also different than Annina's. I would have done things that she would not but I am not doing life alone. (hurray!) I was also pissed off about our budget, which didn't allow us to spend money on guided tours and things that ... well, take you around. Our budget really didn't allow for 22 US dollars a night in the marina either. We had heard that anchoring in Cartagena, Colombia is only $2 per night! Only 500 nautical miles south. Let's go there!
The highlight of my Jamaican experience was here, in a little wooden shack (a shop), listening a heated conversation about everything in life. The shop keeper was full of energy, full of confidence and full of knowledge and understanding. He was a little scary at times, passionate about his beliefs, more than willing to preach them, having pride in himself and his people. "You can't get more Jamaican than this guy", said Phillip, so we all sat down to shut up and listen.
