From Port Antonio to Oracabessa Bay

Tuesday 3 Mar, Jamaica day 9: Oana re-emerges and we passage Port Antonio to Oracabessa.

Hurray! Oana is significantly better this morning. As in a step change. She speaks. She eats. She jokes, and, wait for it …. she says let’s leave this place and go sailing! Hmmm, now I’m wondering. Has the illness affected her mental stability? 🙂 Seriously though, it’s both a big relief and wonderful to have her back again, and I even don’t mind her starting to tell me how to do simple tasks again!

Good job we are leaving because it’s a clear skies and windless morning. Meaning it’s going to be roasting in the marina today. After breakfast, I head to town to get some last minute fresh produce then back on Cloudy Oana puts the shopping away. Nice to have her running the galley again. 3 days of it was fun, but enough for me! I’m happy to hand it back over for another few months!
Customs clearance was pretty quick and by 10:30, with our bill paid, we are cleared to depart.
Oana maybe significantly improved but she is still pretty weak. So I prepare the lines so that I can slip them and leave the marina without her help for once. All goes well and I manage to jump back on board just in time before Cloudy drifts away! As we edge out of west bay, the colours in today’s sunshine are quite stunning. We also spot a beach, right near to the marina, which we didn’t even know existed!

Once in the channel to deep water we realise the swell is in fact much larger than I expected. I give Oana the option to go back but she insists we carry on. So on we go, turning to port, heading west along the north Jamaican coast. I had hoped the swell would be more comfortable once 2-3nm offshore, but it actually got bigger. The waves must be at least 2-3m trough to crest, and coming at us beam-on. So we motor sail in the light wind (7-11kts) to try to stop us from rolling too much. It works, but the sails are taking quite a punishment as they alternatively fill then back-fill. Pointless trying to sail without the engine. We would just be all over the place. And in any case, we need to make water. Our 4 hour passage covering the 32nm is pretty eventless. With the wind at 150deg there is virtually no air through the cockpit and it’s bloody hot. Thank goodness the mainsail is at least giving us some shade.

As we approach the last headland, the swell has diminished a bit, but I’m really starting to wonder if the Oracabessa Bay will really be sheltered. The bay is famous for being the place Ian Fleming (author of the James Bond stories) used to live, in his house called Goldeneye. Apparently Fleming worked in the secret service in Jamaica (of all places) during WWII. He fell in love with the island and settled here. His rival novelist, Noel Coward, also had a property in the next bay. Oracabessa also has “James Bond Beach” where a scene in Dr. No was filmed. We’ll go see that tomorrow.

With sails furled way, we edge our way into Oracabessa Bay through a field of makeshift floats, each marking a fish trap. Before we are barely into the entrance of the bay, the depths are already down to 2.5-2.6m and we really wonder if we are able to anchor in here. Add to the depth issue, there is also a large commercial fishing boat plus several other craft all moored in here. There is barely room for us even if we did have depth.
And when we almost touch bottom and I try to reverse, there is a strange sound coming from the propeller. Maybe we caught one of those fish traps? After a bit of mooching around, we do manage to find a slightly deeper part and we anchor in 4m of water. No tides to worry about here. The tidal range is only 30cm (1ft). As soon as we are anchored I dive in, and sure enough we have several water bottles and a length of rope wrapped around the propeller. Luckily it only took a few dives with a knife to get it all untangled and removed. And we have a deja-vu of our similar dramas with Maine lobster pots, back in 2018.

We have a late lunch in the cockpit and Oana can’t stop saying “it feels so good to be better”. And for me it’s so nice not to be worried about her. This is one downside of our lifestyle: the risk of being unwell in a country where you don’t know if you can trust their medical services. It turns out that we did have the right antibiotics in our medical kit. But in this instance we had lucked-out finding a good doctor. Even the lady doctor said we would not want to be admitted to the only hospital in Port Antonio. Very bad reputation apparently. Maybe we need to rethink medivac insurance coverage.

As the sun disappears and the wind dies we soon have unwanted friends (mosquitoes). So we have to hide inside with the mossy nets over the hatches, making it very hot down below. But thankfully it finally cools off by bedtime.