Halfway to Bermuda

Halfway to Bermuda – Tuesday 2nd June

Now this is more like it – we left Port Antonio last Wednesday 22nd May, and have been sailing on-course to Bermuda ever since. We definitely have had very nice conditions, mostly sunny with typical trade wind fluffy clouds which just seem to help keep the wind going at about 10 – 15 kn, sometimes a little less or more. Today is overcast which is nice for a change, helps to keep cooler. We are making between 90 – 100 miles per day, which is close to our expectations, making an average of 4 – 5 kn.

We are very happy with our SSB radio, it is working very well for us. We have subscribed to a weather router, Chris Parker and each morning at about 0600 hrs we go on air, tell him where we are and listen to what we can expect for the rest of our passage. Of course this information can change daily, but so far it has mainly changed for the better, mostly light wind and seas we can handle. We are mostly sailing abeam to a close reach.

Of course this does not give me any drama to report, but that’s fine by me. We have tried fishing each day but no luck so far, we’ve had a couple of bites and have lost a hook, and one of our rubber squid lures almost got ripped in half by something with very sharp teeth, but other than that no dolphins, a couple of birds have circled around us and even though we encourage them to land they have not done so yet.

We have also made contact with the Maritime Mobile net through whom we can log our position daily on Ship Track. I’ll try to make that a link to this blogsite. Then it will be possible to see our position on the google world map. Of course that is only as good as our ability to report in our position. With SSB/Ham there is no guarantee that we will be heard every day so we don’t want this addition to our keeping in touch toolbox to become a cause for worry. We have an EPIRB on board which is an emergency beacon, which will emit a continous signal for about 72 hours in the event of us meeting some disaster. That’s how you’ll know if we’ve sunk. Anticipated arrival times can change drastically when you have no wind, or a bad weather system that we have to get away from might mean going backwards for awhile.

We can also use SSB to make telephone calls via another service, which we are going to try out for Josie’s birthday.

Which brings me to realize that I have not really said anything much about our time together in Jamaica, which was all too short and half of the time we were hiding inside from torrential rain. Who knew it was their rainy month – May is.
It was good for getting to talk with each other, and to play scrabble, which is one of my favourite indoor pastimes with my children, and with anyone else who wants to play.
Walking around town with Josie is quite hard to do as her mother. With her bright blond hair and all around general beauty, the Jamaican men remind me of rabid hyenas. I felt as though I should hold her hand to make sure someone didn’t try to snatch her away.
But I did make it clear by way of body language and full on scowling that they had better back off.

Leaving Josie at Kingston airport departure gate made me very sad. Not knowing for sure when we’ll meet again, in fact I was so sad that I completely forgot that it was our wedding anniversary. So occupied were we with the things we had to do that day neither of us remembered until a couple of days later. After dropping Josie off at the airport – which is about 2-3 hours away from Port Antonio, we then got our driver – Phillip - $100 for the day, to take us to a mega supermarket in Kingston to do our provision shopping and to a chandlery owned by a man called Tony Ducas, who served us cocktails – rum/7 up while we shopped.

Phillip then drove more of a sight-seeing route back from Kingston to Port Antonio. Port Antonio is on the north east side of the island and Kingston on the south east, and there are fairly sizeable mountains in between. Phillip was careful to avoid the nasty parts of Kingston but he told us enough about it, that we didn’t want to be there anyway. We really enjoyed the relative luxury of Phillips car and his commentary. Phillip has traveled extensively in the world working on cruise ships, but he loves his home, Jamaica.
Actually so do a lot of the people who live here, we were happy to hear so many of the local Port Antonians talk with pride about their country. As we do when we talk of our home.