Log #43F Port Royal & Kingston Cays

Written at: Sapodilla Bay, Providenciales

Feb. 18, 2007

Hi Folks,

Here is my Log #43f about our time in Jamaica at Port Royal and the islands and cays in the area, as well as the timing of the return of our self steering system from the US.

In case you don't know where Providenciales is, we are up in the Turks and Caicos Islands, north of Cuba and Haiti, awaiting a weather window to head to Luperon in the Dominican Republic (DR).
We are OK, and have Veleda suitably repaired, provisioned and refueled for our next legs against the predominant easterlies.

 

Giddy House Armoury Store	Big Half Moon Cay (on the right) & Little Half Moon Cay	Admiralty House

I will describe our departure from Jamaica, our decision to head up to the Turks and Caicos Islands, and our difficult passage up the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti in my next log.

All the best,

Aubrey

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Log #43f

Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, Kingston, Jamaica

Feb. 5, 2007

Nothing is ever simple! The courier pickup the first Monday morning did not take place as there was additional customs documentation needed and by the time we were informed of this the courier had left. Another day's delay! Patti, the yacht club manager, contacted the local Yamaha Dealer, also a Raymarine outlet, whose manager is a club member, to arrange for them to ship it for us. At the same time we were having problems with our Mariner. It wasn't getting any fuel, and a spark plug wire was broken. Patti took us, with the boxed up Raymarine and the 10 horsepower outboard, to the Yamaha Dealership.

Yamaha is a large efficient dealership which repaired the outboard, no charge and sent and received the Raymarine for us, handling all the shipping and customs charges to and from the US, and delivering the repaired unit to us two weeks later. The statement from them for all courier charges, customs and delivery to the yacht club was 12,000 Jamaican dollars, about $180.00 Canadian, which of course we reimbursed them. As the unit was under warranty, there was no charge for the repairs which included bench testing, a couple of capacitors in the computer unit and upgrading the software to the latest version. We still don't know what caused the problem, but it is fixed. We installed the unit, and our sea trial was successful, indicating a deviation of only 1 degree (as opposed to the 15 degrees before the repair). The unit was not returned to us until Feb. 6th, with the sea trial next day and we departed RJYC at dawn Feb. 8. Initially we had naively hoped that we would only spend a week shipping it and having it returned, but the total time was a three week period which has caused us to cancel our Cuba trip for this year. But... Thank you Yamaja and RJYC!

However, we enjoyed the hospitality of the RJYC and making friends with the manager, Patti, the Vice-Commodore, Richard, Bruce, an American liveaboard in the RJYC on Serenade and his wife Kathy, who are teachers at a local international school, and Tom and Rowena, Scots who have lived in Kingston for several years, and keep their boat, Stephanie J at the club. We found all the people and workers there most congenial. The club has haulout facilities and a repair yard. We had Milo, a metal worker, make us another steel plate for our Dinghy-Tow and a reinforcing washer for our stemplate, as well as straightening out one of our CQR anchors bent in a storm in the Cape Verdes last year. It was nice to be in a yacht club slip with water and electricity available, and showers and a swimming pool just a few yards away. This was the first time since last March that Veleda had been alongside with shore power, and the first time we had fresh water showers since we left Trinidad last October. (We do wash in the ocean, and have a pressurized garden spray to rinse us down with fresh water.)

We walked the mile or so out to the main highway and caught a local bus out to the end of the 7 mile spit to Port Royal for a day. This is the infamous Port Royal of piracy times in the late 1600's and early 1700's when the pirates would bring their booty to Jamaica, starting the trade and commercial activities for Kingston. Henry Morgan, one of the more famous pirates, also operated from Port Royal, organizing fleets of pirates known as the Brethren of the Coast which operated part of the time on behalf of England with letters of Marque to prey on Spanish and French ships, and was ultimately knighted and made Lieutenant Governor of the island. At one time Port Royal was the richest and wickedest city in the New World, with a population of 8,000 people by 1678. However in 1692 Port Royal experienced a devastating earthquake so severe it caused much of the sand spit on which the city was located to subside into the sea, sinking almost half the town and killing over 2000 inhabitants in a short period of time. It was devastated by a fire in 1704, and a succession of hurricanes in the early 1700's.

The British used it as a major naval base with Fort Charles, several bastions and gun emplacements, a major dockyard with large repair and careenage facilities, and as a major coaling station in the late 1800's. Fort Charles, a hospital building, and large residences for the Admiral and senior officers are still standing, as are miles of brick walls and gun bastions, though in poor repair. The base closed in 1905. Part of it now serves the Jamaica Defence Force Coast Guard. The site could be renovated and become a major tourist attraction equivalent to and larger than Nelson's Dockyard in Antigua with adequate investment. I enjoyed exploring through the deserted ruins. A Royal Artillery Store for the Victoria and Albert Batteries (now called the Giddy House) built in 1888 was shifted to a cockeyed angle by the earthquake of 1907 which caused the sand base to become unstable. (See the attached picture) At least the town did not subside into the sea as it did in the 1692 quake.

We did enjoy a delicious fish and shrimp lunch at Gloria's, including a local fried casava cake called Bammy. There are two marinas in Port Royal, Morgan's Harbour and the Why Knot marina, as well as a large anchorage area which could be used by cruisers. There are no facilities or chandleries in Port Royal, but there is a bus system which operates every half hour or so into Kingston 8 miles away. There are no other marinas around Kingston that would be suitable or safe for cruising boats.

However, there are good cruising grounds within a 15 mile radius of the harbour entrance, including the bays of Portland Bight and dozens of shoal sheltered cays and islands. A favourite of the locals is Lime Cay, just a mile or so from the entrance with a sandy beach and anchorage on the leeward side (west) of this uninhabited cay, and just south of the main shipping channel. Our second weekend we headed out to enjoy some of these features, armed now with a local Yachtsman Guide to Jamaica, going first to Drunkenman's Cay, 7 miles out (17 54.23N, 071 50.79W) in the late afternoon. The cay was densely wooded with only a bit of beach, but good shelter. We didn't bother going ashore. On Saturday we headed off to Big Half Moon Cay, another 18 miles away. En route I caught a large 36 inch barracuda, the largest I have caught so far. However since we were in a coral shoal area, and since it was so big, I released it (sob, sob) as we didn't know if the barracuda around here might be tainted with ciguatera (?) (See attached picture).

The anchorage at Big Half Moon Cay (17 44.17N, 077 05.29W) was well sheltered from the predominante NE winds. A pattern common around here is the sea breeze from the east during the day, but in the evening the winds shift to a north land breeze. (The land is warmer during the day causing the air to rise and the breeze to come from the sea; whereas at night the land cools down faster and the sea is warmer causing the air to flow from the land outwards.) We dinghied over the shoals to Little Half Moon Cay about ½ mile to the north, and around that similarly uninhabited island. The shoals were quite shallow in spots causing us to have to raise the outboard to get over the shallowest areas. We enjoyed walking the sandy beach and did a bit of snorkeling off one of the reefs. We were the only boat at this and at Drunkenman's Cay last night. Lovely isolation.

However in the morning we were awakened by a knocking on the hull at about 0800 by a half dozen fishermen in a canoe alongside. It sounded as if they were asking if we had any liquor. Our anxiety level went up as we searched for some beer we had available to give them. They still asked for "liquor" which we then heard as "liquid", and realized they were asking for liquid soap to clean their snorkeling masks! We gave them a half cup of dishwashing soap and a cup of rum. They were appreciative and gave us a dozen small reef fish that they had caught spear fishing. I asked if the barracuda here were safe to eat. They are safe to eat. Sob sob, and I had released the largest we had caught to date. They were friendly and not at all intimidating once we knew they were not hitting us up for booze. We took the fish ashore and cleaned them on the beach. They were too difficult to scale, and so we didn't bother after trying to scale the first two. We stuffed them with spices and slices of onion, wrapped them in tin foil and enjoyed a couple of meals of fresh fish. Mmmm!

Later on in the morning we motored over towards Pigeon Cay, diverting off course a bit to look at a couple of unnamed islets with a frigate bird rookery, and the surrounding shoals,. The males were displaying their bulbous red gullets as it was the mating season. It reminded us of the rookery at Barbuda which we visited last spring.

Pigeon Island has a good anchorage (17 47.91N, 077 04.59W), a young palm tree grove from which Judy got herself some coconuts, remains of a salt industry and a large salt pond in the middle of the island. We dinghied around the island, again through very shallow waters. On the east side of the island we saw the devastation of dead mangroves from hurricanes and winds, even though the shore line is protected by a reef system 100 yards off shore. There are a couple of fishermen's shacks on the north end, a lovely sandy beach on the sheltered west bay where we were anchored, and a dramatic long sand spit extending off the southwest tip merging with another 100 yards of shallow shoals. We were the only boat in this idyllic anchorage.

In the afternoon a canoe with a couple of fishermen came by asking if we were interested in some small lobster they had. He held up by the antennae four small lobsters. How much? Only $500 Jamaican dollars (about $7.00 Canadian) OK!

Then they asked if we had any food. We happily gave them a couple of tins of canned meat and a few apples. Again they were very appreciative and handed us another handful of small lobsters. We wound up with 12 lobsters! Mmmm!

Later another canoe with a man and woman came by asking if we had any water. We gave them our 2 litre coke bottle of cold water, and they went on their way. We liked Pigeon Cay, and would return there next weekend with a rally of boats from the RJYC.



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