We finally got our weather window to head through the Windward Passage southbound, a potentially very dangerous passage in poor weather. Windward Passage lies between Haiti/Dominican Republic and Cuba. It narrows quite drastically with sometimes howling winds and strong currents, making this a challenging passage.
It also has a traffic separation scheme. Northbound traffic uses one side of the channel, and southbound traffic the other side.
This part of our journey was navigated completely with celestial navigation only! YAY.
We posted the entire journey, a quite interesting and cool one to read, to our Patreon sight. We hope you check it out! 👍🏻
Nick did a fantastic job navigating and writing about it! It took a lot of work, to plan, to plot, to make our own chart, and to actually DO IT!
Thank you for supporting us on Patreon for all this hard work, and making it possible for us to use the lost art of navigation.
As we passed Cuba, we decided, due to the lack of "just right" weather conditions needed for our continuation to Panama, to make a "pitstop" in Jamaica! A place that was definitely not on our radar, but as weather, winds and currents change, so do our plans. And for a certainty will in the future too.
The journey from Matthew Town, Bahamas to Port Antonio, Jamaica took us four days, with all three nights delighting us with lightning shows in some pretty strong thunderstorms, and some beautiful calm days.
Jamaica.... hmmm... what to say about it. 🙄
It's an island, with jungle, and where Bob Marley started his Raggae music, and apparently they are still playing it VERY loudly and at ALL hours. Here's a random shout-out to the guy that drives around town at 0500 hours on Sunday mornings with music so loud it wakes you up 1/2 mile away.
The anchorage/Marina we stayed at, the Errol Flynn Marina, named after the famous actor, was a well protected harbor with some real neat old things to explore near by.
We spent 4 full days in Jamaica, where the check-in process was interesting to say the least. Whole bunch of paperwork required, questions like whether or not we had "toilet water" was asked of us, and as with all places that we've been to so far.
Depending on what day you check-in, a bit more expensive...as they do not generally work weekends, no receipts are given on those days either, if you understand what I mean.
Us checking in, photo taken from friends we made in the Bahamas, Uschi and Albert from Munich, Germany who are also headed to Panama.
A little exploring was done, a little food shopping, and just preparing for our continuation South.
We even treated ourselves to some local jerk chicken. Yummm.
Notice the cat gas?! Hmmm... not sure about that one....
The best thing I found in Jamaica, at least for me, was the ooh sooo many mango trees! With all the free picking! Another yummm.
Although our stop in Jamaica was a kind of brief one, we took a weather window that presented itself to us, it couldn't have been more "docile", as that next part can be somewhat treaturous , and we headed out, direction south!
Stay tuned to find out where we end up next...👍🏻🥰 it might surprise you....