Hulk                              Presley                            "Skanny"

We have also taken the opportunity to service the main engine and generator; both jobs were not particularly pleasant in the humidity, but prevention is better than cure.   Hazel has learnt to cook several Jamaican dishes and has bought Jerk spices from the market, where we have been befriended by one of the stall holders.  A lovely lady who insists that we stop and talk every time we pass.  Hazel needs to back off a little on the quantity of Jerk Spices though; my lips have only just grown back!  Lots of great fresh ingredients although some of the hygiene practices in the meat market leave a bit to be desired compared to UK standards!  Hazel has also been getting plenty of help from Hulk's daughter Sevaskia, who is a lovely little 5 year old who loves to swim and talk.

Our Friend in the Market                The Butcher                    Port Antonio Square                        Sevaskia

We had to take a customs officer, Mr Colin Hall, to Kingston with us to collect the propeller spares from the airport.  He doesn't travel by bus and likes to go by taxi.  However, we managed to split the cost of a "hire care" with Ovril, a Rastafarian who runs the boatyard who also had items in Customs in Kingston.  Colin and Ovril proved to be great company during a very long day.  Jamaican Customs have embraced every practice left by the British in 1962 and have been perfecting the bureaucratic process ever since.  We left at 9am and got back at 9pm, and Kingston is only a 2 hour drive over the mountains.  We learnt a great deal about Jamaican politics, Rastafarians and debated life in general.  Ovril is married to a German lady who lives in Finsbury Park London, so we had lots in common.  Customs may have been very frustrating, but there is no way we would have found our way through the many parts of the process without Colin's help.  Despite the frustrations, the day was in no way wasted as the drive to Kingston was lovely, along the Bays of the North Coast and then through the mountains, with a lunch stop at Junction Halt, and rainforest to the other side of the Island.  We also eventually got our spares!

Junction Halt for Lunch               The Jungle!

The 6 February was the 50th anniversary of Bob Marley's birth and Jamaica held a schools Bob Marley contest to celebrate "Bob Marley Day".  Titchfield School won the Port Antonio contest with their rendition of Buffalo Soldier and went on to represent the Parish of Portland that evening in Kingston.  The standard of music, choreography and dancing was great and provided a real party atmosphere.  Then it rained!  The heavens opened, which put the dampeners on things, but only briefly.

Titchfield School                              Bob Marley Day                          When it Rains it Rains!

Our repertoire of card games for 2 was running short so Steve set about making a Cribbage Board so that we could play Cribbage.  It is a nautical version as we use two bronze split pins as pegs.  We have also invested in a set of Jamaican Dominos, although we aren't brave enough to play the locals yet; every corner seems to have a game of Dominoes going on.  Evenings in the Tropics are full of fun!

We fitted the new propeller with the boat in the water and, once again, our investment in our own dive gear has paid off.  The job went smoothly and we are almost ready to depart.  We will leave Jamaica with sadness and fond memories.  It has been the friendliest place we have visited so far.  Its lush beauty will also be hard to equal.  Its reputation as a violent, dangerous country for yachtsmen to visit is certainly not the case in Port Antonio where we have been made to feel very welcome.  We've engaged with the town beyond the boatyard and have never felt threatened.  On the contrary, once people have realised that we are English and on a yacht, they have been interested and engaging, and happy to talk about their relatives or personal experiences in the UK.  There is undoubtedly crime and corruption in Kingston and Montego Bay; however, we would recommend Port Antonio to anyone in transit through the Central Caribbean. 

13 - 17 February 2007  We spent the morning finishing off preparing the boat for the next leg of our trip.  We slipped our mooring just after midday, raising the mainsail with its 1st reef whilst in the Bay and then headed out into the seas.  The sea was more boisterous than we had expected outside the natural shelter of Navy Island; however, once we got the wind aft of the beam we romped along in18-25 kt winds.  We goosewinged with the headsail poled out to windward, which reduced the roll significantly.  We made good progress along the North coast of Jamaica with the following wind until 8pm when the wind died to nothing.  We then motored throughout the night in the hope that the wind would return once we had cleared the Western end of the Island.  It didn't!  To add insult to injury, we picked up a foul current which reduced our speed to about 3 kts.  It took until the afternoon of the 14th to finally clear Jamaica so that we could head down to the Pedro Banks.  We continued to motor after trying every sail combination we have onboard, which at best gave us 2kts of forward speed.  These conditions set the tone for the remainder of the passage with very light winds and a large uncomfortable swell that just banged the sails back and fore.  Valentines Day was hot, long and noisy and distinctly lacked romance.  The 15th and 16th were long days and nights with no winds; however, the swell reduced to replaced by frequent showers!  Even they didn't bring wind.  We did get into the routine of watches on a longer passage, which to date has eluded us on the shorter hops.  We raised the lights of Providencia around midnight on the 16th/17th and although the chart was at least half a mile out from the GPS position, the pilotage was straightforward.  We slowed down to make a dawn arrival to be frustrated by the return of the wind at 15 kts from aft the beam.  Sod is alive and well!  We anchored in Catalina Harbour, behind Morgan Island (after the famed pirate) at around 7am.  Columbian entry formalities were efficient and the officials courteous.  The agent was a Mr Bush Howard and we laughed that we may have been related back in the 1600s if one of Steve's ancestors was either a pirate or puritan.  Elvis, the Port Captain, asked us to move further from the channel which we did, laying a second anchor in anticipation of the 30 kt winds forecast for that night.  The wind materialised, and blew with a vengeance and we were glad to be at anchor despite the frustrations of a long motor passage.

17 - 22 February 2007  We spent our time in Providencia walking and enjoying the Island with John and Paula on 'Mr John VI' and Chris and Lynn on 'Kindred Spirit'.  The Island has very few cars and only one road.  The main source of transport are mopeds, capable of carrying a family of four with ease!  We hired a moped to explore some of the beaches in the National Park, which forms the majority of the Island.  We had a delightful lunch of fresh caught fish grilled on an open fire at Ronaldo's Restaurant.  We would recommend it to any visitor to the Island.  It is like a pirate's lair, with the furniture made from driftwood and bamboo set around Ronaldo's tree house.  Renaldo is a young guy and a great host.  He even holds a surgery with a visiting doctor for the local poorer people who cannot afford medical care.  It was strange eating lunch with a doctor's surgery going on at the next table! 

One morning we set off early with John, Paula and Johan to climb El Peako, the highest peak on the Island.  We climbed at a brisk pace along a cattle trail, through dense undergrowth.  Although early in the morning, the tropical heat and humidity took its toil; however, we reached the summit in an hour and a half from where we could see the anchorage and the rest of the Island.  The walk down was equally tiring as the temperature had now risen to a steamy 88 degrees F.  It was well worth the effort and after a week onboard, we welcomed the exercise.

Our stay in Providencia whilst short, was sweet.  We enjoyed the easy going, safe environment and the mix of Afro-Caribbean and South American cultures.  The Island is not rich, but has an air of dignity and it is evident that they are working hard to promote it as a tourist destination.  An example being the floating causeway to Morgan Island, which has a newly paved path and steps up to the old gun emplacements and large white Madonna on the hill overlooking the Harbour.  Everything is brightly painted and clean, the people friendly, welcoming and hospitable.

23 - 27 February 2007  We had cleared Customs the previous afternoon and planned to leave mid-morning for the 240 mile passage to Colon, Panama.  The forecast was good for the three days it would take us to make the passage and we raised the sails in 12-15 kts of wind and sailed out of the Harbour.  We cleared the reef around the Island with reefed main and poled out headsail before settling to a three day beam reach under reefed main, staysail and headsail.  We averaged just under 6 kts in almost ideal conditions.  The seas were large at about 10' but with a 10 second interval between the swells.  We spent the passage reading and sleeping and let the Monitor self steering do the work.  However, we did gain a stowaway for a few hours as a swallow took a rest onboard and hitched a lift.  We expected to see a lot of shipping, particularly as we closed with the Panama coast; however, we saw very little.  As always, at night on Hazel's watch!  We arrived off Colon, the entrance to the Panama Canal, mid-morning on Sunday the 25th.  There was a significant amount of very large shipping close to the entrance which had obviously come a different way to us!  We threaded our way through super tankers, container ships and freighters of every size and description to anchor in an area known as The Flats near Frenchman's Creek and the Panama Canal Yacht Club.  We are about a mile offshore and the anchorage is rolly due to the constant stream of passing ships, tugs and pilot boats.  But it has a refreshing breeze and privacy which is distinctly lacking at the somewhat rundown Yacht Club.  That said, the Club is functional and we have been able to collect mail; however, it is not safe to venture beyond the Club on foot, even in daylight as muggings are a real risk. 

Clearance in was painless and achieved without an agent thanks to an exceptionally helpful taxi driver.  He steered us to the right office, in the right order, with the right documents, no mean feet as there were many.  He's been doing the job for 15 years and was sufficiently well known in each office to venture behind the counter, find the forms and jump the queue.  His English was faultless, which is just as well as our Spanish is non-existent.  His services for the morning cost us one of the best $20 we've spent in a long time.  We were measured for our transit the following morning and we should transit the Canal sometime next week.  Rudy, the taxi driver has agreed to accompany us, along with two of his friends to act as line handlers.  Our pilot boards around 5pm on the evening of the transit, we then up-lock in the dark to anchor in the lake before down-locking to the Pacific the following day.  The pilot sleeps ashore, but Rudy and his mates will stay onboard.  There's not much room but they are happy to sleep in the cockpit (I hope they're not too tall!).  We will let you know the date of transit so anyone interested can watch us go through the locks on the live webcams at Panama Canal Website. 

28 February 2007  We went for our first look at the Panama Canal and the Gatun Locks which elevate you about 95 meters above sea level from the Atlantic to the level of Gatun Lake.  They are enormous!  Gatun locks cover an area of 423 square kilometres.  Each lock has two parallel lock chambers.  A complex system of culverts and valves control the level of water required to elevate and lower ships through the series of three locks.  We were there during the morning when the large ships are going through.  Each lock chamber is 33.53m/110' wide and 304m/1000' long.  The ships are designed to fit within these chambers with maximum dimensions of 32.3m/106' wide, 294.1m/965' long and a draft of 12m/39.5'.  A ship will usually transit the Canal in 8 - 10 hours.  The ship that we saw going through was of the maximum dimensions, leaving just 2' of clearance on either side and cost them $219 000 to transit the Canal; luckily, transit costs are based on the size and type of vessel, so our costs are much cheaper!  This size of ship is moved and held in position in the chambers by four electric trains.  Everything was done carefully and slowly to ensure that the ship was kept under control.  It was a very impressive operation, if a little daunting as our first lock will be in the dark!  But what foresight by the engineers when the Canal was opened in 1913 to build the locks large enough to allow for nearly 100 years worth of growth in the size of shipping.  Plans are in place to build a third set of locks at either end of the Canal to allow for the next generation of ships which are much, much bigger and will double the Canal capacity.