Port Antonio Jamaica – Sailing into our next chapter

Port Antonio, Jamaica to Bimini, Bahamas – Late Fall 2022

So much of cruising is about weather watching. The more you watch the weather, the more in tune with it you become. Perfect predictions are rare. Here we were, at Errol Flynn Marina in Port Antonio, Jamaica, wanting to get to the Bahamas via the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. I was watching the weather via PredictWind and thought we had a good weather window for some time during the week of November 21^st, but as the days went by the weather just didn’t seem to hold. As each day passed, the weather window continued to move further out and get shorter. During this time, we kept discussing the weather with our boat buddies and finally decided that the best window would be on the 25^th. So, we left Port Antonio on the 25^th of November at 6:00 am. Three boats heading to Matthew Town on Great Inagua Island. This was a 254 nm passage that took us about 1.75 days.

We were the slowest boat and lost sight of the other two boats on AIS within 12 hours. The fact that we now couldn’t follow them wasn’t too important as we had already decided to do as much easting as possible, not wanting a repeat of the passage from Panama to Jamaica bashing to windward. We were still pinching as tight as we could to make as much easting as possible, but at least we were sailing and making headway.

As if hand steering wasn’t bad enough, No Regrets decided we needed more boat projects to deal with. So, on this passage, the main sail furling mechanism decided to stop working while the main was fully deployed. It appeared that the furling drum and the foil, the sail wraps around in the mast, separated from one another, so when I tried to furl the sail, the drum spun but the sail didn’t furl. This wasn’t a problem at the moment, but as the wind increased, I wished I had been able to reef the main. Luckily, the wind didn’t get too strong. I did have a concern about not being able to furl the main when we anchored but really couldn’t do anything about it. We would just have to make do and hope the wind wasn’t howling at the anchorage.

I was glad we had made as much easting along the coast of Haiti as we had because we were able to sail all the way to Matthew Town without being close hauled. Unfortunately, due to the time we took easting, we didn’t arrive until 11:30 pm on the 26^th of November. It’s always a little spooky coming into an anchorage in the dark, but we anchored without issues and let the main flap in the light breeze. Jack, on our buddy boat, had stayed up to see if we needed any help with the mainsail. So over VHF, I thanked him and told him we would address it in the morning, as we were too tired to do deal with it then.

The next morning Jack and the guy on the third boat came over to look at the situation with the main furler. To get to the furling mechanism, we needed to remove the boom and gooseneck from the mast. With three of us, it was easy to remove the boom and tie it up so it wouldn’t damage the boat. Once the boom was secured, the two guys left me to figure out how to fix the furler.

Three small screws hold the foil to the furling drum, and they had all fallen out. Many months ago, I found a small screw near the base of the mast but didn’t know where it came from. A second one had fallen out at another time and during the passage from Jamaica, the last screw fell out. I found that one at the base of the mast when we took the boom off. It was good to finally know where that screw, I found on the deck many months ago, came from. I had saved that screw and with the one, I found on the deck that morning, I only needed one more screw. With luck, I had that and a few more in my tackle box of screws. It was a very simple fix. I decided to use some Loctite on the screws so they would be more inclined to stay in place. Reattaching the gooseneck and boom to the mast was easy and I was able to do it with a little help from Lynette. By mid-morning, I was able to furl the main with no issues.

Next on the list was to check into the Bahamas. Jack came by with his dinghy and we went in together to the Port Captain’s office. There was a mail boat at the dock and almost everyone in town was there to sort out their supplies to take home. The residents order much of what they need and have it delivered by the mail boat. I’m not sure how often the boat comes, but it is regular enough for everyone to order what they need and come to the dock to pick up their orders. The dock was very busy.

The Bahamas has a website for paying the $300 cruising fee via credit card. It’s not the best website, and while in Jamaica with very slow internet, I spent quite a bit of time trying to fill out the online form and pay our fee. I was eventually successful, but it did try my patience. Starlink is going to be one of my next purchases.

Because the port was busy that morning, it took some time to get checked in. The Port Captain was very nice and accommodating. He got all the paperwork together and after at least an hour, we were finally checked into the Bahamas.

We stayed at anchor for another night, then headed north for Landrail Point, Crooked Island on Monday, the 28^th of November at 1:00 pm, a 118nm passage. Jack and his family headed west to the Ragged Islands, so we were on our own again. We needed to make water, so we motor sailed for a while to fill our water tanks. We had good wind, so when we were done making water, we sailed the rest of the way. At one point we had both the yankee and staysail out making 6 knots in 12 knots of wind. I just looked at my log notes and I had written that this had to be one of the best passages we’ve ever had. It was a starboard beam reach to close reach almost the entire way. The seas were calm, and the wind never got above 17 knots. We arrived and anchored in sand in 15’ of water at noon on the 29^th. A strong NE wind was predicted for the next few days, and from what we had read, this anchorage would be reasonably protected.

We needed eggs, as Matthew Town didn’t have any, so the next day we put the dinghy in the water and motored over to a small landing. I had done some research earlier that morning about places to eat and Active Captain had several comments about a great little restaurant. When we landed, I called to make a reservation for lunch, and we were offered a ride to the restaurant. Within a few minutes, someone came to the landing and picked us up. The restaurant was small and in what looked like a modified home. The place was empty except for a group of local men eating lunch. The food was excellent and very inexpensive. We paid $40, including tip, for a multi-course meal with drinks and key lime pie for dessert. Several people were putting up a Christmas tree and decorations around the restaurant, and I help assemble the stand for the tree as they couldn’t figure out how it went together. I was glad I could help. After lunch, we were taken to a very small grocery store to provision. They had eggs and diesel, so we filled 3 jerry cans and got eggs along with a few other items. This was the most expensive diesel we had purchased at $8.18 per gallon. It was also the dirtiest diesel we had purchased.

The dinghy ride into town had been smooth as we were going with the wind. The ride back was a bit sporty as the wind had picked up and it was right on our nose. We were quite wet by the time we got back to the boat.

As predicted, the wind continued to increase from the NE and blow for the next few days. When we had anchored, we tucked in as close to the shore as we dared to be as protected as possible. The winds got up into the low 30s at times and the water was a bit choppy, but we were reasonably protected from the wind. The wind finally subsided on December 4^th, so we plotted a course to the south end of Long Island, a short 5-hour hop. We had been anchored at Landrail Point for 5 days, most of it waiting for our next weather window. We weighed anchor at 10:00 am and were off to a good start in 13 knots of wind with full main and yankee carrying us at 6.8 knots on a starboard broad reach. Within an hour, the wind had picked up to about 20 knots, so we put a single reef in the yankee. We anchored off the south end of Long Island at 3:00 pm. It took two tries to anchor as the first try was in sand over something hard, so the anchor wouldn’t grab. On the second try the anchor dug in and held well.

This anchorage was only an overnight stop for us and there wasn’t much around. We went to bed early as we needed to be up the following morning at 3:00 am to make the passage to Thompson Bay further north on Long Island. Interestingly, the bay is only 34nm north of where we were, but the water between us and Thompson’s Bay is so shallow with many rocks requiring us to go around the shallows making the passage 69nm. Half of it going in the wrong direction just to avoid the rocks and shallows.

We had to leave early in the morning as this was going to be our first passage in skinny water, and we wanted to do that part of the passage during the day. The first half of the passage was in deep water, so we had no worries about doing that portion in the dark. We arrived at the skinny water at daybreak and followed the magenta line on our charts to the anchorage.

Ah, the magenta line on the charts. Yes, this is the secret to traveling in the Bahamas. Many charts have magenta passage lines that are “safe” routes to follow through the shallow Bahama Banks, which comprise much of the cruising grounds of the Bahamas. Sometimes on our Navionics charts, we would be following a magenta line and suddenly it would just end, leaving us with no safe route to follow. Through talks with cruisers, we found that the Explorer Charts are the best for the Bahamas, so we downloaded the Aqua Map App and purchased the Explorer Charts while we were at the restaurant at Longrail Point. Much better than the Navionics charts.

Back to the passage. We got up at 3:00 am and left around 3:45 am. We followed our track back out to the open water without incident and headed west. We had good wind and were cruising along on a starboard close reach at 6.8 knots in 15 knots of wind. We arrived at the shallow water around 8:30 am, dropped the sails, and began motoring following the magenta line.

This was our first time on the Banks in the Bahamas, and I was a bit nervous at going 5.5 knots in 10-12 feet of water with rocks in the vicinity, but I put my trust in the magenta line and followed it to the anchorage. We arrived without incident at 4:15 pm on December 5^th and put the hook down in 9 feet of water in sand. It had been an excellent passage and a great first time in skinny water. We were going to have a great night’s sleep, as the anchorage was very calm. Sleep was much needed after a long day’s passage.

The next morning, December 6^th, we left for George Town at 8:00 am. The winds were between 12-15 knots from the NE, a good starboard broad reach sail to our anchorage. We anchored in 9 feet of sand at 3:30 pm at a place between the main anchorages on Stocking Island to the east and George Town, called Da Middle, which it was. right in the middle with not much protection. It was early in the season, so there were only 30-40 boats at anchor at Stocking Island. Some friends were there in February and counted 344 boats anchored in the area. Quite a difference.

It was calm the next morning so we took the dinghy off the boat. The plan was for me to go get diesel and propane, come back to the boat, and then both of us to go in for groceries and lunch. For some unremembered reason, this didn’t happen that day and we waited until the following day to take the dinghy to town. The wind had picked up a bit so my ride in to get fuel was a little bumpy, but the wind was from behind, so it was a dry ride. The ride back to the boat was another story. Not only had the wind increased, but the wind waves were also bad. It was a very rough and wet ride. There was no way Lynette was going to endure a ride in the dinghy, so I called a water taxi to take us in and bring us back. That was a very wise decision. Yes, it cost $30, but the ride was dry and much more comfortable than the dinghy. We walked down the street from the grocery store and had a good lunch at Island Boy Café. The grocery store wasn’t big, but for the Bahamas, it was quite large and well-stocked.

We left the next morning at 8:40 am on December 9^th for an anchorage at Big Galliot Cay. This was a 40nm passage that required timing to get through the two cuts we had to navigate. Cuts are narrow channels between islands that have very strong currents during rising and ebbing tides. Our route required us to go out into deep water through one cut and back into the shallow water at another cut. We didn’t worry about timing the first cut, Conch Cay Cut, as Active Captain didn’t have warnings about timing the transit with the tides. I was wrong in assuming it would be ok. The wind was blowing from the east and I believe the tide was going out. We had massive waves going through the cut and at full throttle, we were only doing about 2 knots. We were going out with another boat, so had figured all was good. Luckily, we did make it without incident, but one wave was massive and as I watched the other boat go up and over, I was reminded of the movie The Perfect Storm. Needless to say, I was a bit shaken.

We motor sailed most of the way up the east side of the Exumas. The wind was light, and the seas were not rough. I timed the passage so we would arrive at Cave Cay Cut during slack tide. We furled the sails and headed through the cut with no issues. New rule: never go through any cut in the Bahamas without taking the wind and tides into account, regardless of what Active Captain says or doesn’t say.

We motored the rest of the way to our anchorage at Big Galliot Cay for an overnight stop. There was one other boat in the anchorage, so we dropped the hook in 10 feet of water a safe distance from them at 4:00 pm. The anchorage was protected from the east wind and was very calm.

The next morning, we left at 5:30 am for Highborne Cay, a 61nm passage. We motor sailed with the wind almost on our nose until about 9:00 am. At that time our route made a slight turn, and we were able to sail for about 3 hours. It was back to motor sailing for the rest of the passage as the wind had eased and was mostly on the nose. We anchored in 16 feet of water in sand and grass at 5:30 pm. It took a couple of tries to get the anchor to set, but it finally did. There were many boats in this anchorage

It was now Sunday, December 11^th and we needed fuel for the passage to Florida. Highborne Cay has a very nice resort with a small marina and fuel dock. I called to arrange for someone to be at the fuel dock and we weighed anchor at 7:30 am to be at the fuel dock by 8:00 am. When I went to the bow to raise the anchor, I snapped a picture of the anchor on the bottom at 16 feet. The water was so clear I could easily see the anchor on the bottom.

All fueled up, we left Highborne Cay at 8:30 am for West Bay on New Providence Island, a passage of 46nm. There was no wind, and we motored the entire distance anchoring at 4:45 pm in sand in 9 feet of water. It was kind of a boring passage through water that averaged 10-12 feet the entire distance. We just followed the magenta line on the chart and watched the motorboats zoom by as if we were standing still.

The next morning at 9:30 am we weighed anchor and motored to Chub Cay. The wind was about 10 knots on the nose, so we motored the whole 31nm and anchored in 7.5 feet in sand at 3:30 pm. The anchorage had a swell when we got there but it was very calm by morning. This was supposed to be our last stop in the Bahamas before crossing the Gulf Stream and reaching Florida. It was also going to be where we checked out of the Bahamas, but after doing some research and emails with authorities, we were told that if we were going back to the US, we didn’t need to check out. That was nice, as it saved us a dinghy ride to town for the checkout.

Weather prediction for crossing the Gulf Stream was a bit tenuous, looking like a possible blow coming through the area. We had hoped we could miss most of it, so we set off for Florida at 9:00 am on Tuesday, December 13th. It was supposed to be a 143nm passage. The winds were light, so we motor sailed on a beam reach in 5 knots of wind. By mid-afternoon, the north swell was starting to roll the boat uncomfortably, but the winds were still low, and we continued to motor sail with the main up to help control the roll. By evening the wind had increased to about 10 knots and we were now sailing on main and reefed yankee at 5.5 knots on a starboard broad reach. The winds kept increasing to gusts of 30 knots and the sea became very rough in the early morning hours. We furled the yankee and had two reefs in the main motor sailing. It was too rough to continue, so we discussed our options and headed south to Bimini to hide from the wind blowing from the east-southeast. The lee of Bimini would provide some protection until morning and then we’d decide what we would do next. We tucked in close to shore and anchored at 6:50 am dead tired and ready to get some sleep. At least Bimini was providing some protection from the wind and the anchorage wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t our original plan, and the 143nm passage to Florida turned into a 102nm passage to Bimini. At least Bimini was close enough for us to make the detour and find protection from the wind and seas.

We woke late in the morning and decided that we really would be miserable at anchor as the anchorage wasn’t all that comfortable. I radioed Brown’s Marina and got a slip for a few days. We motored around to the harbor and tied up at one of the slips. It had been a very good decision and Lynette was very happy we were at a marina. These docks were different than what we had been used to. The pilings were on the outside, so the boat rested against the pilings instead of the dock. The pilings had some protection on them, but not much. We were told not to use our fenders as they would get caught by the pilings when we pulled in. That was certainly a first for us. After the boat was secure, we took showers and had a good late lunch at the restaurant onsite. After the passage from Chub Cay, we were both very tired, so it was off to bed early.

The next morning, I checked the weather and it appeared we had one small window to leave around 5:00 pm the following evening, so we spent the day just resting and doing much of nothing. It felt good to take a day off, as we’d been moving every day since we left George Town. In the afternoon of the following day, a family pulled into the marina that had just come from Miami. They told us it was a rough passage, and that they were new to sailing. None of them were happy about the rough passage and they never wanted to do that again. They said they had been warned about the bad weather but didn’t heed the advice to leave in the evening instead of the morning, as they didn’t feel comfortable sailing at night. They paid the price and had a very rough passage with both kids sick. We left for West Palm Beach, Florida, at 5:30 pm that evening, Thursday, December 15^th.

Stay tuned, next time, for our trip to Florida.

Shelter Bay, Panama to Port Antonio, Jamaica – Fall 2022

September 10, 2022, had been a long day but we were finally done with the Panama Canal transit. After showers and a burger at the marina restaurant, we walked back to the boat and were faced with a total mess in the galley. There was pasta sauce all over, pans that needed to be cleaned, and dishes that were left by the 7 of us (the two of us, 4 line handlers, and the canal advisor) that had eaten breakfast and lunch. What a mess, and to top it off we were tired as we’d been up since 3:00 am and it was now about 7:00 pm. We decided to leave the mess until morning and went to bed.

During the canal transit, our starter battery finally failed. I had known that it was on its last legs for a while, as the starter was getting slower and slower each time I started the engine. By the time we arrived at Shelter Bay, the engine would no longer turn over and I had to switch to the house battery bank to start the engine the last time I started it. This was just one more thing to add to the growing fix-it list.

Over the next week, I looked into finding a replacement start battery. I tried to get one locally and what was available didn’t quite fit our configuration, so I ordered one from the US. The marine chandlery we used has a regular shipment that comes to Panama, but I missed the boat by one day. There is only one boat per month to Panama, so our new battery had to wait for the next boat the following month. This meant we wouldn’t receive the battery until the end of October.

I didn’t want to use the house battery bank to start the engine for fear of damaging those batteries, so the boat sat as we waited for the new battery to arrive. Part of me wished I had purchased a local battery and not waited for the exact replacement battery. Waiting for a battery caused us to miss out on exploring the east coast of Panama as we had planned. We missed going to Bocas del Toro and the San Blas Islands. Kind of a shame, but they are still there, and we can always go back to explore these areas.

*Moonrise during potluck at Shelter Bay*

Meanwhile, there was the fix-it list that needed to be addressed, so we started working on reducing the size of that list. The night before we transited the canal there had been a very heavy surge at the La Playita Marina causing one of our line chocks to break off the toe rail. This needed to be repaired, but before I reinstalled the chock the entire toe rail needed a few more coats of finish. After several days of putting polyurethane on the toe rail, it was finally ready for the chock to be reinstalled. Reinstalling the chock was an easy task, as I had the correct size and length screws to reattach it. Even though we carry a very good supply of nuts, bolts, screws, and washers on board, I usually don’t have the right size for the job. It was a pleasant surprise that I had what I needed.

We enjoyed our two-month stay at Shelter Bay Marina. Shelter Bay has a great cruising community that is quite active. We had potlucks every Sunday. You bring a dish to share, something to throw on the grill, and your own drinks, then sit down and enjoy great conversations with the other cruisers that are at the marina. We also participated in Happy Hour every Wednesday with snacks to share and our own drinks. There were nature walks, free bus rides to town for supplies, and music jam nights. All quite fun and this made our stay both memorable and enjoyable. The time flew by.

We had met a family in Barra De Navidad who were now at Shelter Bay Marina. The family consisted of mom, dad, three kids, and a dog on a 37’ catamaran named Kyrie! They were doing some repairs on their boat and getting ready to head toward the US. We were heading in the same direction, so we decided to buddy boat. When all the projects were almost done, and our starter battery had arrived we started watching the weather for a favorable window. We left on September 8^th in the morning for a 29nm run to Linton Bay for Pizza, Beer, some fuel, and an overnight anchorage. The next morning, we headed to Guna Yala (San Blass Islands) to overnight at the swimming pool. We grounded twice trying to get close to Kyrie but could not find a way around the sandbar. They have a shallower draft, so could anchor in much shallower water. We finally found a way around the sandbar and anchored reasonably close to them.

*Kyrie anchored at the Swimming Pool, San Blas Islands*

The next morning Kristen and Joe came over to discuss our next passage and have coffee. The plans were made for the day; we would leave in the afternoon as there was concern the weather window to Jamaica wouldn’t hold. Meanwhile, being anchored in crystal clear water I decided to try out my homemade hookah and clean the bottom of the boat. It was a tiring task that left me quite exhausted after several hours of cleaning. The hookah was a great success, though. Lynette went for a swim in the warm, clear water while I was busy cleaning the bottom.

That afternoon before dark we took off for Jamaica. This was to be our longest passage, taking 6-7 days. It was a great afternoon for the spinnaker with the wind on our starboard quarter at about 160º. We were able to attain speeds up to 8 knots while only flying the spinnaker. As night fell, I decided to leave the spinnaker up as the wind was calm. I should have doused the spinnaker when it got dark, but we were making great headway, so we left it up. That was a mistake, as the winds died in the middle of the night, and we were plagued with a beam swell that relentlessly rocked the boat. We were now motor sailing with the spinnaker lashed down to keep it from getting damaged. It wasn’t until the next morning that we were able to douse it and stow it below. Just as we finished stowing the spinnaker we were hit by a squall. It was short-lived, and we spent that day fighting low to moderate winds, going back and forth between motor sailing and sailing depending on the direction and speed of the wind.

We had planned to go east as far as Santa Marta, Colombia, along the Colombian coast, and then turn north to Jamaica, but the seas were getting rough, and the wind was increasing from the east as we moved through the night. Finally, Kyrie turned north ahead of schedule as they couldn’t handle the pounding in their catamaran. We followed a short time later. This was to be our second mistake and it was a big one; not easting far enough to make it to the eastern end of Jamaica.

Catamarans notoriously do not point well to weather, meaning they can’t sail as close to the wind as we can. As time passed over several days, Kyrie slipped farther and farther to the west and clearly couldn’t make it to the east end of Jamaica. They finally decided to go around the west end of Jamaica, with Montego Bay as their destination. They were hoping to only stay there for a short period until the weather allowed them to join us at Port Antonio.

The seas were bad for the next 4 days, not calming down as long as the wind was blowing. According to Predictwind, the winds were supposed to slowly clock around to the east, but they only did for a very short period. The wind continued to blow predominantly from the ENE, preventing us from making much-needed easting to pass around the east end of Jamaica. As Kyrie was sailing farther and farther west, we were also moving a bit too far to the west. During one of the days our autopilot stopped working so we were left to hand steer while motoring. Luckily the wind was blowing well, and when it wasn’t on our nose, we were able to sail and use the Hydrovane to steer the boat, giving us a break from hand steering. Kyrie and I stayed in touch via our Iridium GO and their SSB radio using email so we could update each other as to our conditions and plans.

By the 4^th day we realized that we would not make the east end of Jamaica, so decided we should follow Kyrie and go with the wind to the west end of Jamaica. That decision had also been prompted by the fact that our fuel problem had reared its ugly head again and the engine wouldn’t run in the choppy seas. It would be necessary to change the fuel filter and I wasn’t about to go below and do that while the seas were tossing the boat around like a cork. I had. Been seasick much of this passage, and a trip below would have been disastrous. And to add to our dilemma, the winds continued to come from a more northerly direction, now almost out of the NE. Without an engine, there was no way to gain any more headway to the east. Turning west was our only option, so we turned and headed west under sail.

During one of my cat naps in the middle of the night, I woke to flapping sails (I always set a 15-minute alarm to wake me so I can look around). The wind, after all this time, decided to die. I mean dead. No wind, period, and without the engine, we were just bobbing on the water. Now that the wind was gone, the seas started to calm down and I was able to go below and change the fuel filter. The engine started right up and with no wind, I made a command decision to turn the boat around and head east. We had only gone west about 5 hours, so had to backtrack that same amount to get to where we had originally turned west.

We continued to alter between sailing and motor sailing as we headed east. The wind was mostly on our nose, or close to it. Along the way, a Jamaican Coast Guard vessel came alongside and asked where we had come from and where we were going. We said Panama and Port Antonio. They thanked us and sped away. We rounded the east end of Jamaica expecting a bit of a breeze to push us the rest of the way west to Port Antonio. No such luck. The wind died and we motored to Port Antonio.

It is now the 16^th of November, and without wind, we wouldn’t make the marina before dark. We don’t like entering marinas or anchorages in the dark, but we’ve had to do it a few times, and this was one of them. After looking at the chart we decided to anchor in the East Harbor as it appeared to be an easier route than going through the narrow channel to the marina. After 7 days on the water, we were overjoyed to get a good night’s sleep anchored in a quiet harbor.

In the morning there were two fishermen in a boat close by so we chatted with them for a bit. They told us they were putting out lobster traps. We weighed anchor around 10 am and headed into the Marina careful not to disturb their traps. The Errol Flynn Marina is not what it used to be since COVID. The only amenities are showers, a pool, and laundry. The two restaurants were closed down. Luckily, there were some restaurants, cash machines, grocery stores, and an open-air market all within walking distance.

We settled into our dock routine of fixing things and exploring the area. The first on our list was to address the fuel issue. We have a small gear pump connected to the engine to change the oil. I decided to disconnect it and rig it up to pump out what was in the bottom of the fuel tank. It took a bit of time, but I was able to rig up a suction tube and return line so I could suck fuel from the bottom of the tank and return it to the tank after going through a screen filter. I ran this pump for at least an hour moving the suction tube around the bottom of the tank. I had to clean the screen out 3 times as it got completely clogged with gunk from the bottom of the tank. I put everything back together, returned the pump to its location on the engine, and hoped I had removed enough gunk to eliminate the fuel issue. I would find out later, as we made our way to Florida that the fuel issue had been solved. Even in rough seas, the engine never quit again.

We meet a couple and their two kids who knew their way around the area. They invited us to go provision with them, so we got to know them a bit. We also walked to dinner with them at a restaurant they discovered that was very inexpensive and good, and walked to a jerk chicken take-out place along the shore (a staple of Jamaica). It included what I would call a fried dumpling called a festival. It was doughy and fried but did taste good. I guess this is Jamaica’s answer to French fries.

During our conversations with them we found out they were heading to the Bahamas soon, so discussed buddy boating to Matthew Town on Great Inagua. They were very generous and gave us some books on the Bahamas they no longer needed, as we had not planned to go to the Bahamas and had no books or charts of the area. We pored over the books and started planning our route to Florida through the Bahamas. Not an easy task, due to the shallow waters of the area. We then focused on watching the weather for a good weather window to go through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Not an easy task, as this time of year, the wind is coming from the east-northeast and would be on our nose much of the way through the pass. Working with our buddy boat, we arrived at a departure date and made plans to leave in the early morning of November 25, 2022.

Stay tuned, next time, for our trip through the Bahamas to Florida.