Sailing in Jamaica, saying goodbye

Sebastian Inlet State Park, Fl

Back at the hotel we took an early morning sail with one of the water sport guides.  It was so much fun! I had a blast trying my hand at the tiller.

Unfortunately our little underwater camera took on some water and the pics weren’t that great. Great memories tho. 

Alas our time in Jamaica has come to an end. Time to head back to the states and continue on our road trip.  We have family to see, places to visit and backroads to explore. Thanks Jamaica, we’ll be back. 

At Montego Bay airport waiting to board, always time for one more Red Stripe beer and goofing off. 

Such a short flight between Jamaica and Miami!  We sailed thru customs got to Winnie about 5 pm and headed for Sebastian Inlet Campground, about 3 hours away. We had so much fun there just a few days ago, why not make that our stop for the night?  Settled in, ready for bed, thanks Winnie for holding the fort down while we were away.  (Nightly prayer:   Please Lord, no matter how old I am let me make the climb into the upper bunk of Winnie.) 

This officially marks the halfway point of our roadtrip.  Tomorrow we start heading West.  

Bachelor’s Hall, Jamaica

Bachelor’s Hall, Bath St. Thomas Parish, Jamaica

The main reason for coming to Jamaica was to visit a cocoa farm and meet the owner/farmer. Based on our previous experience, cocoa farms are never in the tourist areas or easy to get to places. Usually they are tucked away in some obscure valley over a yonder mountain range - or two. But that’s what makes it all the more challenging, intriguing and a little bit magical.  Our goal is to bring our chocolate to every farmer that grows the cacao and thank them for all their hard work. In the fall, we will be coming out with a new single origin chocolate bar from Jamaica. We had the pleasure of meeting Desmond Jadusingh, the owner, and spending the afternoon with him at his cocoa farm called Bachelor’s Hall. 

What a delightful, knowledgeable and kind soul Desmond is.  We connected with him immediately. 

Driving thru Jamaica there are lots of signs that say “icy cold jelly.”  These fruit stands are selling young green coconuts. Nothing quite quenches the thirst as drinking cold coconut water fresh from the coconut and then scooping out the cool jelly flesh.  After our 4.5 hour drive to get to the farm Desmond greeted us with this treat. It was sooo good and hit the spot! I wasted no time digging in. The spoon to dig out the jelly coconut is a slice of husk cut right from the outside of the coconut. 

Desmond took us on a walk about around his farm and showed us his operation.  Here’s some beans being fermented.  They are in a wooden box covered with banana leaves and burlap.  Just love that yeasty smell of the beans at this stage. 

Here’s the drying beds.  After the beans have been fermented (usually 5 to 7 days, I believe Desmond does a 7 day ferment) they need to be properly dried.  This can be really challenging in the tropical climate. Cocoa trees love the rain, but beans need dry weather. Desmond built his own tables for the beds from specific wood from his farm.  Here we are turning the beans and mixing them up.  This is where the love is put into the beans. It’s acutally quite meditative and therapeutic. This was my favorite part.  I could have done this for hours.  

Desmond has about 1000 acres.  He grows both coconuts and cocoa together.  Everything is organic and he works really hard to keep the balance in the land nurturing both these crops.  We picked a cacao pod from the tree and got to taste the sweet fruit.  I wish everyone got the chance to experience sucking the sweet fleshy pulp right from the pod.  Theobromine - food of the gods. 

He also has a woodworking area where he makes all kinds of things from these huge trees on his land - doors, beds, fermenting boxes, etc.  As he was showing us this area he told me it was a “no fly zone.”  I didn’t know what he meant and he said, “Oh I specifically let all the spiders be. It keeps the flies away.”  What the hell?!  I then notices all these HUGE spiders everywhere!!  Seriously, the biggest friggin’ spiders I have ever seen in my life. They were about the size of my hand. This was my least favorite part of visiting the farm.  (Megan, Marlina, Rachael, Jessica - I hope you feel my pain).  

More fun pics hanging around the cocoa farm. As we were leaving Desmond wanted to make sure we had a good journey back so he gave us lots of coconuts. Desmond is quite the success story. His cocoa beans have won awards and several European companies are vying for exclusive contracts to be the sole buyer of his beans. We feel so fortunate to have a supply and are looking forward to sharing our chocolate with everyone.  

Journey thru Jamaica

We’ve been off the grid the last couple of days.  We had quite the epic journey thru the backroads of Jamaica.  We seriously thought of renting a car and trying to find the cocoa farm ourselves.  Given the only direction we got was that it was between the Blue Mountains and the John Crow Mountains we decided to hire a driver.  So glad we did!  Hunter was amazing.  Not only was he safe and fun he was also extremely knowledgeable and a great source for my constant questions.  Here’s a pic of our journey.  The red spot is where the cocoa farm is located. On another post I’ll talk about the cocoa farm. 

We traveled over mountains, along the sea, thru small towns and big cities, and fields of sugar cane and coconut groves.  Much to my surprise, Kingston was an industrial city of refineries and factories spewing out choke inducing pollution. I was romanticizing it by hearing Harry Belafonte singing, “Jamaica Farewell....had to leave a little girl in Kingston town” in my head.  Rather than tell you about each place, I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.  I just wish you could smell the jerk stands, burning sugar cane fields and miles and miles of sweet flowers and ripe fruit.  We traveled thru foliage tunnels of mangoes and bread fruit and were greeted with big smiles and lots of waves.  A journey that will stay with me for a long time. 

Typical mountain village homes. 

Hundreds of fruit stands dotted the roadways, along with trucks carrying sugar cane and coconuts. 

Bustling towns

Loved how the sea changed on different parts of the island.  Much of it reminded me of Northern California, specifically around Mendocino. 

And the interesting people. The picture in the bottom right corner is Hunter, our driver. 

Of course, no road trip thru Jamaica is complete without a jerk stop along the way.  Jerk chicken for me, jerk pork for Ned. We also got plantains and yams.  

Road trip fun...hanging out in the van and finding bathroom stops along the way. My bathroom was a bit more modest, Ned’s was a tad more “open.”  

Low key in Jamaica

Royal Decameron, Runaway Beach, Jamaica

Today was all about chilling out.  Hopping between time zones (ahead 3 hours, back an hour) had me up a bit early.  I decided it was a great time to get in an early morning snorkel before the winds kicked up, then hit some hammock time while I waited for Ned to rise and shine. It makes it so easy to be steps from the ocean. 

Pretty awesome place to have breakfast. 

We did eventually rally from beach time and took a walk about town.  The small town we are in really consists more of roadside stands along a busy highway.  We ran into this guy - who caught all this spear fishing! It was fun to poke around the small stands and hear the locals talk with either their Jamaican accents or speaking Patois.  (Patois is a mix of Spanish, Portuguese, English and African language. I never learned what African language or dialect, was just told African).  On more than one occasion someone would run out of their restaurant or bar and come get us, encouraging us to visit their place.  About every 10 minutes or so we were also asked if we wanted to “buy some ganja mon. For you, white lightening rolled for $10.”  Do they not understand I’m from Nevada County and not one of the Brits?  We go this.  

We had signed up to take a sailboat out this afternoon on the bay with one of the local guides.  It got cancelled due do the winds.  Hopefully we’ll get a chance to do it later this week. In the meantime we settled on just hanging out and enjoying more beach time.  For a couple of hours today the water at the hotel was off and then when that came back on the electricity went down.  What a perfect time to enjoy some rum drinks...

The water here is completely potable, right from the tap.  It comes from the springs in the Blue Mountains and is filtered. So nice not to worry about the water and so nice when it works! 

Tonight’s local fare was Jamaican pepper pot soup, pigtail stew, goat curry and callaloo. It was all sooo good! After dinner we listened to some Raggae music with dancing.  Fun times on our little spot on Runaway Bay. 

Arriving in Jamaica

Royal Decameron, Runaway Bay, Jamaica

Flying over Montego Bay into Jamaica was gorgeous. We had a really easy flight, less than 2 hours, and we flew through immigration and customs in less than 15 minutes. Actually getting to the airport thru Miami traffic was a more stressful ordeal.  Took us over an hour to go 20 miles. But, we’re here and “Ya’ mon” it’s pretty great. 

We’re staying in Runaway Bay a ways from the Montego Bay airport. We had a delightful driver, Abdul, who shared lots of interesting cultural and historical things about Jamaica along the way such as Discovery Bay was named after Columbus landing in Jamaica in 1494 and Runaway Bay was named after runaway slaves.  He also pointed out haunted houses and other fun stories about local places. There are wild goats that roam freely everywhere. We also stopped at a jerk chicken place on the way to the hotel. Great guy.  Our journey to the hotel was almost as long as the flight, but I really enjoyed just taking in all the Jamaican countryside. 

We are staying at an all-inclusive resort, but we really wanted a super low key place, not the typical  blow-out party place. When you’re used to camping and living in Winnie, transitioning to the over the top swanky places can be a bit too much to take. This place is perfect!  We are the only Americans here - as far as we can tell.  Mostly everyone is British, but we also heard German and French.  The drink menu is in French and English, and they are just a bit different from our typical rum drink names. For example, instead of the cocktail “Sex on the Beach” it’s “Sex on a Coach.” (???)  I think there are only about 200 guest at most here.  Everyone has their own little cottage and we are right on the bay.  It was a bit overcast and breezy today, but honestly a nice break from the oppressive humidity and heat of Miami. 

Tonight we opted for a romantic dinner on a terrace overlooking the hotel grounds. We are really looking forward to exploring the local town tomorrow and getting to know Jamaica a little more organically. We don’t have wifi here, but instead are using a Verizon “travel pass.”  Good enough to hopefully post a blog, but not be connected to the news and social media. Okay, I’ll also take a peak at the election returns and try and catch a Warrior score. Ya’ Mon, give me a few more days to chill out.  And yes, everyone really does say that in almost every sentence.  It’s contagious.  

Miami - South Beach

Larry and Penny Thompson County Park, Miami, FL

On our way to Miami today we stopped by Castranova Chocolate to meet Denise the chocolate maker.  Like us, she makes handcrafted bean to bar chocolate from single origin beans. She also makes her own truffles and drinking chocolate. She is a delightful person and we enjoyed talking all things chocolate with her.  I hope you get a chance to try her chocolate, it’s pretty dang good! We bought several bars, now only if we can keep them from melting in this heat - the best way is to eat them😏.

Next stop was the infamous South Beach Miami. It was a scorcher today, close to 100 degrees and not a cloud in sight.  We had fun walking the strip and wandering around.

But, our real mission was to visit Lario’s Restaurant.

This restaurant holds a special place in our hearts. About 15 years ago, when I was working at Apple I traveled to Miami on a business trip with Ned tagging along. Since it was his first time in Miami I thought it would be fun to take him to some of the hot spots.  We had drinks at Madonna’s bar and had a romantic dinner at Lario’s (Gloria Estafan’s Restaurant) where he tried a mojito for the first time. When it arrived Ned very sweetly asked, “What is spinach doing in my drink?”  Oh man, how could I not fall in love with this guy?  Made us laugh so hard. Ironically, Ned is a master at making mojitos now.  If you haven’t had one of his mojitos hanging out on our back deck, come on by! Sooo good. 

We spent a wonderful afternoon having Cuban sandwiches, drinking several mojitos and settled in for the people watching.  

Okay, I was actually VERY selective in the pics I’ve posted here.  Trust me, this is pretty tame and tasteful compared to some of the scantily clothed people walking by. This place is just alive with colorful clothes, food and people. Our Cuban waiter, Daniel, was actually getting a kick out of us taking pics of the scene.  He started telling us stories of some of the things he’s seen working here. 

 Life goal: learn to work it like the people walking the strip in South Beach. 

The Art Deco buildings are the best. I love seeing them lit up at night too with all their neon colors.  Wish we could have hung out longer, but alas we needed to head out of the city before traffic really got worse. As it was, it took us 1.5 hours to travel 25 miles.  

Tonight we are camped at a county park.  It’s sooo friggin’ hot and we were really looking forward to jumping in the pool here.  It’s closed...ugh. We’ve settled on hosing ourselves down with the water spigot.  So, why this wonderful destination of a county park in the city of Miami?  It’s proximity to the Miami Airport.  Tomorrow we head out for Jamaica! Tonight is all about laundry, re-packing our bags, cleaning up Winnie and getting ready for the trip.  I have no idea if we will have internet in Jamaica, so if you don’t hear from me for awhile...stay tuned.  You know I’ll have a few good stories to tell. 

Beach Day!

Sebastian Inlet State Park, Melbourne, FL

Sunday Funday!  We’re not rolling today just hanging another day on this beach. We’ve done beaches in California, the Gulf, up and down the Atlantic Ocean and even The Keys.  I think this is one of the best. Turquoise warm water, great sand, fun surf , and you can’t beat the location - right at our campground!   (I didn’t do any doctoring at all on this shot. In fact, most of my pics are just as is.  I like capturing the realness of the moment). 

We heard there was some snorkeling to do here as well.  Word around the campground was to catch it at high tide at the rocks, under the bridge, in the cove.  We gave it a go.  Meh - kinda a bust.  The water in the cove is super murky and the fish were just fish, nothing showy.  Time to move on to the beach. 

And what a great day it was!  We spent most of the day trying to catch that perfect wave.  We traded off with the boogie board, but honestly best ride of the day was when Ned had the boogie board and I was on my floatie. We both caught this enormous wave together and rode it alllllllll the way into the beach.  I swear I have more fun with my floatie, patched up and all.  

Picnic on the beach. We spent over 5 hours on the beach.  Thank goodness for Aloe Vera for me and the umbrella for Ned! Just LOVE the colors in this photo, it really shows all the beautiful blue hues here.  

Back at the campsite watching the party boats on the Indian River.  I think there’s a big sand bar where all the boats gather.  Music is blasting, people are standing around in the water drinking beers. It’s quite entertaining.  Time to pop a cold one and watch the action. 

We took an evening bike ride and as luck would have it we saw dolphin feeding! So fun to watch them come up and then dive back down.  We were also entertained by the snowy egret.  Such personalities.