Port Antonio Jamaica Part 1

Errol Flynn Marina at Port Antonio.  Left: the excellent dinghy dock

Errol Flynn Marina at Port Antonio

We arrived at Port Antonio at 0910 on Monday 20 January out of a torrential rainstorm.  Even in the rain, the harbour and marina were attractive, lush and green, doubtless as a result of weeks and months of similar downpours.  We were met by the marina manager, George, who was very helpful and efficient and who gave us a huge pile of forms to be completed for quarantine, customs and immigration.

Buying fresh nutmeg and mace

After a couple of hours we’d been cleared as safe for Jamaican soil by all the officials so we wandered into the town to get some local currency (the Jamaican Dollar can only be obtained in Jamaica) and stretch our legs.  When in Jamaica one must eat Jerk meat, so we had jerk chicken with rice and peas for lunch at food place near the town centre and then took a look at the market.  Even though it was after lunch, it was still going reasonably strong and there were some fabulous looking fruit and veg on display.  We still had plenty of food left over from our supermarket run in Road Town so didn’t need to top up the fridge but we did buy a bag of nutmeg, complete with its mace, as our Grenada stocks were beginning to run low (down to our last 3 or 4!).  We also purchased a Jamaican flag to use as a courtesy ensign as the flag we had used on entry was really far too small to keep flying.

Linde at anchor close to the marina

There were several other yachts in Errol Flynn Marina that we had met previously: Linde, with a Dutch couple whom we had met in St Peter’s and then Halifax in Nova Scotia in 2018, was at anchor off the marina and Incentive with Rik and Sanne, friends of Steve and Carol on Innamorata II whom we had we met in Beaufort NC, was in one of the marina berths.  It was good to catch up briefly with both crews, but they had each been here for a week or more and were planning on moving on now that the wind had died down.

Beach just east of the cruise ship dock

We strolled around the marina facilities and out to the small cruise ship complex close north of the marina.  It’s not used that much anymore.  George said that the next ship wasn’t due in until 9 February and the last had visited in mid-January, presumably because so many cruise ships are just too big to use the facilities here.  The passenger complex was closed up but the beach alongside is very attractive, if one ignores the concrete backdrop.  It reminded us rather of the large cruise ship dock on Grand Turk, where too the passengers are expected to use the beach right adjacent to the ship’s berth.  It seems a little odd to us.  Hardly an idyllic tropical island outlook from underneath your idyllic tropical island palm tree.

View out along the channel between West Harbour (where Errol Flynn Marina is located) and East Harbour towards the entrance to Port Antonio and the Folly Point Lighthouse.  Navy Island, which provides significant shelter to West Harbour, is on the left of the picture

Errol Flynn Marina from the cruise ship dock.  BV is mostly hidden behind the large motoryacht but you can see her mast with the OCC burgee at the masthead

Looking through the planting to the swimming pool at Marybelle’s, the marina bar

From the cruise ship dock we wandered back along the foreshore to the marina complex, ending up at the Marybelle’s, the marina bar.  Here we had arranged to meet Conner and Karl from Contigo, an American flagged Beneteau 423 a couple of berths down the marina from us.

A more conventional view of Marybelle’s, the marina bar

We had a lovely evening with the two of them hearing about how they started sailing, the places they have visited and some of their plans for the rest of this season.  It sounds as if we might well end up meeting them in several places along our route this year, particularly over the next few months where it seems as if we have almost exactly the same plans.  But, like Linde and Incentive, they had been in Port Antonio for an extended period and had plans to move on in a couple of days’ time.  But that would give time enough to meet up again and swap further notes on places to visit both here and further afield.

The West Harbour anchorage from Marybelle’s

The next day (Tuesday 21 January) we moved out of the marina to the anchorage, saving ourselves US$15 a day in the process.  The charge for a marina berth is US$0.95/ft/night, about US$40/night for BV, whereas the charge for the anchorage is US$25/night.  (To these you also need to add an additional US$3 environmental/rubbish disposal fee for each night you are in residence on the boat.)  For every 2 nights spent in the marina, we could have 3 at anchor and have the benefit of a quieter time (no squeaking fenders) and better airflow, albeit at the expense of less convenience in going ashore, though the dinghy dock is excellent.

Shades of a year ago in Cuba…...  We’ve removed the saloon table to expose the top of the aft fuel tank and all its feeds to the various diesel users (engine, generator, heater) as well as the priming pump for the generator

We spent the rest of the day working on the generator to see if we could find the reason why it failed to keep running.  Ironically, the last time we had a problem like this, in Cuba and the Bahamas last year, I spent ages working through all the likely sources of a fuel supply blockage but it turned out to be a couple of faults in the wiring.  This time, with the generator firing up, running for a few minutes but then shutting down, I assumed that we had a loose connection in the control circuit again.  However, after hours of work in the machinery space, it turned out to be a fuel supply problem with a blockage in the fuel line priming pump.  After running various tests we removed the pump (it’s a sealed unit and can’t be opened and cleaned) and the generator ran perfectly once again.  I made a temporary bodge connection in the fuel supply line for the short term, awaiting a proper fix using some copper tubing once I’d sourced some of the right size from a hardware store.  So, a success, albeit a lengthy time in getting there.  On the down-side, we can’t find the replacement plugs for the generator fuel supply relay (the plug that was a problem last time).  Whilst I was busy checking wiring looms etc, Nicky searched high and low for the spare plugs.  Somehow, they’ve not made it onto the spares inventory which, given that they were delivered to us at Phil and Lesley’s home last June, means that they could be almost anywhere on the boat.  Oh, we are so looking forward to pulling BV pieces some more to find them!

Night-time view across the anchorage

We had a peaceful evening at anchor, enjoying the airflow through the boat, despite the very settled conditions.  However, at 0230hrs I was woken by some splashing and talking, and found that 4 locals had paddled out on a bamboo raft and that one of them was trying to climb up onto the back of BV.  Happily, shouting at them and waving a bright torch (flashlight) scared them off.  I tried taking some pictures but, unsurprisingly, nothing came out, though the flash helped to discourage them from returning.  They then paddled across to the other yacht in the anchorage.  Shining the flashlight at them again dissuaded them from going too close, though there were protests of innocence “What’s up, mon?”  We spent the rest of the night holding an anti-burglary anchor watch (which allowed me to sort out some photos for the blog) and moved back into the marina when it was light.  Spend to save!

Looking for hardware stores in Port Antonio

Street vendor

With BV back in the marina we continued our exploration of Port Antonio, primarily its shopping opportunities.  We visited various hardware stores and bought a length of copper pipe to fit in place of the priming pump in the generator fuel supply run.  In the process of finding hardware stores we checked out most of the town’s ‘super’markets, revisited the market and noted the local street vendors.

The patty cabin at the bus station

Most of the school population of Port Antonio seems
to frequent the bus station’s patty shack

Importantly, we also investigated some of the street food – in this instance the bus station’s patty-shack.  We found the patties here to be excellent and went back several times during our stay in Port Antonio for a quick and easy lunch.

In the evening we invited Karl and Conner from Contigo and Jared from Snoepje (single-handing in a Pacific Seacraft 24) for drinks on board BV.  They were fun company and we talked long and late, in and amongst some of which lots of good information was shared around.

Saying goodbye to Karl and Conner

Sadly, that night was Karl and Conner’s last at Port Antonio so first thing in the morning of Thursday 23 January we waved goodbye to them as they set off for Grand Cayman.  Then we headed ashore to explore transport options for a trip into the Blue Mountains at the weekend.

The park in the marina grounds was very lively with a schools outing

We visited the taxi stand, the local route bus station and the larger coach station to size up all of the options available to us.  It looked as if we would need to take a route bus or a coach to Kingston and then either a taxi or a series of buses from there up into the hills.  After that we expected to walk from the end of the road to the accommodation at Whitfield Hall, from where we would hike to Blue Mountain Peak.

The Errol Flynn marina main building

Returning to the marina we saw that Karl and Conner had returned; they had found a crack developing in their pushpit/davits and so turned back just an hour into their passage towards Grand Cayman.  Happily, the next day a local welder was able to help them to ameliorate the problem until they can have it fixed properly by a specialist marine stainless-steel welder, probably in Grand Cayman.  In the meantime, we discussed our plan for the Blue Mountains with them and Jared and they all said that they’d be interested in joining us.  Cue a bit more detailed planning – but at least the costs suddenly looked a lot more reasonable!  We spent the remainder of the day in a flurry of planning and bookings – car hire (with 5 people a car was more cost effective than buses and it would give us the flexibility to visit a coffee plantation too), accommodation, food and a guide, and a visit to the aforementioned coffee plantation.  It was shaping up to be a good weekend.

(Left) a carpenters’ shop we visited on Titchfield Peninsula.  (Right) Colourful local bar we spotted on the way to picking up the hire car

Friday 24 January dawned overcast but the weather forecast was looking favourable for our dawn hike on Sunday.  We did some baking so that we would have snacks for the hill (flapjack) and something to eat with our coffee at our unfeasibly early wake-up call on Sunday morning (ginger cake).  Neither was a triumph!  I forgot to add the oil to the cake mix so Suzanne’s ginger cake was less cake-like and instead rather rubbery and chewy.  Meanwhile the BBC Good Food testers let us down with their flapjack recipes which turned out more like granola than flapjack.  So, to relax, we took a stroll around the Titchfield Peninsula, the high ground to the north of the marina.

An information board outside the marina informed us that “the Titchfield Hill Peninsula was first settled in the 1720s and was named after the English estate of the Duke of Portland, who was Governor of Jamaica at the time of the formation of the parish of Portland.  The peninsula contains Fort George, the old Military Barracks and a number of houses reflecting various historic styles of architecture from England and America.  Many of the houses were built in the late 1800s as residences for merchants when the banana trade made Portland prosperous.  Captain Lorenzo Baker, one of the pioneers of the banana trade, encouraged Americans to visit the island, travelling on his ships, and the merchant houses on the peninsula housed the few tourists who visited.  As the trips to Jamaica became more popular, Baker built the Titchfield Hotel, giving Portland the distinction of being the birthplace of tourism in Jamaica.  The peninsula remains residential though some of the houses have become guest houses.”

Tourism done for the day, at 1700 we headed across to the hire car company, finished off the paperwork and picked up the car in preparation for a prompt start the next day.  And to ensure that we were all happy with the weekend’s plan of campaign we had a quick team briefing in BV’s cockpit over a couple of beers before final packing and good night’s sleep.

Port Antonio, Jamaica