Category Archives: Cruising Guide

Information for other cruising boats. Our experiences finding places to anchor, dealing with officials, provisions, etc.

Passage from Port Antonio, Jamaica to Matthew Town, Great Inagua Island, Bahamas

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Saturday, March 8 — We untied from the dock in Port Antonio at about 1130. As soon as we left the bay and got out into the open ocean, the swells were about 3-feet at 6-seconds, directly on our nose. The wind was about 10-knots, creating about 1-foot wind waves, also directly on the nose. We were hobby-horsing like crazy. Eric immediately got sick. Keith initially felt okay, but once he started looking at his screen, it didn’t take long before he was sick, too. 

Wind and sea conditions stayed the same all of Saturday, and Eric and Keith were sick all of Saturday. During the day, it was sunny with scattered clouds. At night, the 3/4 full moon shone so brightly it was like a spotlight, making the stars barely visible. However, after the moon set, the stars were vibrant.

Dawn on Sunday

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Piglet’s, Exploding Rockets, and Getting Ready to Go

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Thursday, March 6, continued — Not long after Michael dropped us off at the marina, we headed back out to get dinner. Several people had told us that Piggy’s was the best jerk chicken in town. Others told us that Piglets was even better. You’d think with the names Piggy’s and Piglet’s, they’d serve pork, but they both only served chicken and sides. Ed told us that Piggy’s owner looked like a pig and thus Piggy was his nickname. He also told us that the owner of Piglet’s had once worked as a chef for Piggy’s. Piggy’s had burned down, and rather than waiting for Piggy’s to be rebuilt, the chef opened Piglet’s.

We’d planned to eat at Piggy’s since it was in an actual building and it looked like we could eat inside. John saw us leaving and insisted on escorting us. Piggy’s was on the main road that paralleled East Harbor. As we neared Piggy’s, John insisted that we go to Piglet’s, instead, which was just another block or so down the road.

Piglet’s had no menus or signs, so we had no idea what our food choices were beyond jerk chicken. A batch of something yummy looking had just come out of the deep fryer, so when the cashier asked which side we wanted, we pointed to those. Since Piglet’s had no seating, we took it back to the boat to eat it. Here we are walking back towards the boat on a sidewalk that wins for most scenic and most treacherous.

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Exploring Port Antonio, Jamaica

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Monday, March 3 — After being in the jungle at Shelter Bay marina for over a month, we were used to waking up to a cacophony of chirping birds. This morning, there were chirping birds, but they were overshadowed by crowing roosters and car traffic. The air smelled distinctly of smoke. Yup, we were back in a city. 

We were sad to report that it never rained. At 0900, Eric was at the marina office to request that the water be turned on so we could rinse the boat. While rinsing the boat had certainly helped with the salt accumulation, in order to eliminate it, we needed to hand scrub. We did some scrubbing in easily accessible spots, but we’d have to go back to scrub the rest of the boat later. We also noted that the marina’s pipes have a significant leak — no wonder they only turn them water on upon request.

This morning, we found out what the warning that the locals were too nice meant. At several different points in time, we were greeted by locals offering assorted services. And when we said no to one service, they had another and another and another service that they offered. They each kept pushing until they found something we’d buy. One roped us into buying locally grown coffee, another a jerk spice mix and jerk sauce. Both promised to procure “the best” and return later with their respective products. And in all fairness, both products were indeed great, though we suspect the markup for the delivery was huge.  

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Welcome to Port Antonio, Portland Parish, Jamaica

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Sunday, March 2 — Tonight was a rare astronomical event — a seven planet alignment, with several of the plants visible to the naked eye. But sadly, the seas were too uncomfortable for us to even consider sitting outside to see it.

By midnight, we could see lights from southern Jamaica in the distance. By dawn, we were close enough to be in the shelter of the island and the waves became a little smaller. We could also smell smoke – not an unpleasant smoke, like a fire, but like smoking food. 

Shortly after dawn, we rounded the western corner of the island. Our change in direction meant we went from head seas to beam seas. Eric’s seasickness instantly vanished. As we trekked north, we ran close to shore. From what we could see, Jamaica was mountainous and lush.

It only took a couple of hours to go from the southern side of the island to Port Antonio, located on the north-eastern side of the island. We turned into a bay named East Harbor, then immediately turned into a channel between the tip of the mainland peninsula and Navy Island that led into a bay called West Harbor.

Entering East Harbor, Port Antonio
The channel between East Harbor and West Harbor, Port Antonio
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Getting Ready to Depart Panama

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Sunrise on Sunday February 23

When we arrived in Shelter Bay Marina on January 19th, we’d expected to move on in the first few days of February. However, the weather has been uncooperative, so we’ve stayed about 3-weeks longer than anticipated. We were happy to see that the weather was finally cooperating and we could leave on Tuesday in the very early morning.

The majority of Sunday was spent getting Kosmos ready to go to sea. Since we’d been at Shelter Bay so long, we’d unpacked a lot of items from the assorted deep, difficult to access storage spaces. Getting it all put away was a Jenga game, as everything needed to be carefully packed so it wouldn’t shift when the boat was rocking. 

Eric also led a kids’ D & D session. In the evening, Christi and Eric went for a walk in the jungle, following the road to Gatun Bridge for about 3/4 mile, until we got to a small bridge over a stream. Unfortunately, there was no walkway for part of the bridge, and being a blind curve, we decided it best to not walk in the road. We turned around and went back to the marina. The expanse between the T-intersection and the bridge where we turned around was mostly jungle. 

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