Montego Bay, Jamaica

Alia Vita
Rob & Frances Lythgoe
Fri 4 Mar 2016 21:24
18:27.65N  77:56.50W

What a difference a day and about 100 miles makes. We have arrived in the sanitised, westernised Jamaica. There are American style malls with American fast food joints like Wendy's and Burger King. You cant get curried goat there. What a disappointment. We arrived with three massive cruise ships who disgorged their passengers all at the same time. They all trundle down the pier, past the diamond shops, the watch shops and camera shops to the bar at the end. No doubt they stop there for a beer and a burger, get back on their cruise ship in the afternoon and have 'done Jamaica'. 

The saving grace here is the Montego Bay Yacht Club. We have anchored just in front and here it is $10 for use of the pool, wi-fi, lounge, etc, and they sort out the customs and immigration for us. What tops it all though, and I know I'm contradicting myself here a bit, is that the yacht club restaurant is a destination in its own right. We were told it was good so broke with normal regime and went out for dinner. I wore long trousers and the table had a tablecloth on it. The food was excellent, the best we've had since a very memorable steak in St Lucia in December 2014, and with drinks we spent about $40 US. Didn't have a pudding though!

Today we leave for Havana which is about 600 miles away. Once there we will leave the boat in Hemingway Marina and embark on a three week land tour with John and Elaine who fly out on Tuesday. It could be touch and go who gets there first but if we go too early we will hit horrible conditions for the last 150 miles as we turn east along the north coast of Cuba in a couple of days time. If the forecast is right, we can wait a bit for that wind direction to change, sail it overnight and arrive in Havana in the morning. As always, we try our best to avoid arriving anywhere in the dark. When you get closer to shore their are small fishing boats, fishing pots, nets etc and obviously it gets shallower!

Next installment Cuba.