Katie’s Birthday- Planning Mode

Posted by Christopher

It is February 5th and that means it’s Katie’s birthday!

A couple of weeks ago, Alexander and I were hanging out in my room when Katie stomped down the stairs and said “Hey you boys! My birthday is in a few weeks and I’m appointing you to plan my party! You cannot decline! Bye!” and from that point on, Alexander and I did the closest thing to forgetting possible, without actually forgetting. Although a couple of days ago, we got a jumpstart when Katie said “I’m so excited for my birthday!”

She who must be obeyed.

So since then,  Alexander and I have been going at full speed to plan this party. Although, despite our original laziness, we’ve planned a seemingly awesome party, complete with games, cake, food, music, and presents! (We got Dad to get some first world country style presents, and then we went to the store at Montego Bay and got her some things like stuffed animals.)

Find the "Katie" in the cake.

This morning we filled up a ton of balloons and got Katie to make her own cake because of her affinity for making awesome cakes. She topped it off with gummy bears, but all the gummy bears are gone now, and it didn’t look like she used them all on the cake, so I wonder where they got to.

The mystery of the missing gummy bears.

Either way, after that we made Katie a birthday crown, and she liked that a lot.

The Birthday Queen!

Then we had a delicious meal of bacon and French Toast that Mom and Alexander had cooked up. The dishes load looked big, but Mom handled it very well and did all of them.

Breakfast dishes, before...

...and after.

Finally the joyous morning had ended but it is up to Katie to write the blog about her party, so I leave you with this; Bye!

For the cousins:

P.S.: dss ukt bqofpzf rpuk pwqgf fkqosg jtu d jdxt bdsstg frqygpjq. pu pf drtfqxt# dzg pu pf qzsi ^4.11

Montego Bay (or Mobay to the locals)

posted by Sara.  Written February 3, 2014.

We had a great run in the 20 knot winds from Discovery Bay to Montego Bay although once again the waves were bigger than we like.  As we came into the harbour, we sailed right under the end of the airport runway.  The planes were close! 

I suspect if one of these guys clipped the top of your mast, it would be disaster for everyone involved!

All the cruising guides recommend staying at the Montego Bay Yacht Club (MBYC) so that is where we headed.  The yacht club apparently had a bar, restaurant, swimming pool, games room, WiFi and lovely washrooms but we still had second thoughts as it was a stern tie dock.  A stern tie would mean a lot of stress for us and loads of entertainment for any bystanders.  Once we arrived, we realized that anchoring wasn’t going to be comfortable as the MBYC isn’t sheltered at all.  It is located on the western shore of Montego Bay and the bay is wide enough for the 15-20 knot prevailing easterlies to blow full force straight onto the dock.  We dropped an anchor in the high wind but it was the least sheltered place we have ever anchored.  Scot and I both felt very uncomfortable with it.  I went ashore to check things out while Scot waited on the boat to make sure our anchor didn’t drag.  It turned out that the MBYC did have a transient slip available so we decided to try it.

The Montego Bay Yacht Club

The stern tying event was as chaotic as predicted with us dropping our anchor about 80 feet off the dock, tying off to a mooring ball and then backing into the slip.  Actually, it wasn’t really a slip, just a piece of the corner of the dock.  It took a few tries as our boat has a lot of windage and we got our bows blown off to port and then to the starboard a few times.  Finally we were  secured on our corner of the dock.  Ironic that we still pay by the foot, given that only a couple feet of our boat actually had any dock space.  Luckily, we ended up docked next to our friends Ja because we needed to tie a line from our bow to theirs to keep the wind from pushing our bows off again.  Scot was in a bit of pain from all the exertion as he had fallen from his paddle board onto the reef in Discovery Bay and stepped on some sea urchins.  Both his heels were still riddled with sea urchin quills.

We paid for a 39 foot boat, and got 4 feet of dockspace.  But it was easy to get on and off, and we stayed put for the whole time we were there.

Jon and Giovanni, our friends on Ja, who we have been sharing anchorages and marinas with since Peurto de Vita in Cuba, were docked right next to us.

We spent the next few days enjoying the amenities at the yacht club, getting our boat topped up with diesel, water and provisions, catching up on our e-mail and doing a bit of site seeing.  The pool here is very nice so the kids enjoyed that (as well as the WiFi.)

The restaurant at the Montego Bay Yacht Club.

The bar at the Yacht Club, where we watched the Superbowl.

The yacht club's weekly racing fleet.

Day two:

Due to a local strike there was no diesel available at the yacht club.   We had ironically let our diesel tanks get quite low as we were trying to use up our older fuel and replace it with ‘fresh’.  Scot and I were just on our way to call a taxi the following morning to take us and our jerry cans to a local gas station when we met another Canadian on the dock.   He had hired a car for the day and kindly offered it to us to take to the gas station while they finished their breakfast and got themselves organized for their day.  Great!  We also dropped our laundry at the dock office as they send it out for laundry service – it comes back late in the afternoon all clean and nicely folded! 

After we topped up our fuel tanks from our jerry cans, we called for a taxi.  Lee took us to the Mega Mart about 10 minutes drive from the marina.  It is a smaller version of a Costco & we spent a couple of hours getting provisions for the boat (and eating Haagen Daz ice cream!)   At the Mega Mart, we bought some rotisserie chicken (jerk flavor – it was delicious).  That night, we watched the Super Bowl in the bar at the yacht club .  We were the only ones rooting for Seattle.  Most of the Americans and Canadians here are from the east coast, Ontario and Quebec so Denver seemed to be the favourite.  We still couldn’t believe the score though! Turns out we picked the right team.

The Mega Mart in Montego Bay is the biggest grocery store we have seen since Florida.

The kids managed to get into the bar and try their hand at pool.  Note the Rasta Man in the background.

Day Three:

Today we spent the morning changing the oil in our diesels once again.  Much easier the second time ‘round. And customs and immigration came to check us out of the country as we are leaving in the morning.  We might end up in a few more Jamaican bays before heading over to the Cayman Islands but we have to officially check out at Montego Bay.   In the afternoon, we called Lee again.  He took us on a ‘2 hour tour’ of Montego Bay and the surrounding area.  We got to drive through the downtown, the touristy hotel district, past Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville,  through a high end neighborhood, down to historic Falmouth and then up into the hills.  It was a great way to get a feel for the area. In the hills, Lee kept jumping out of the car to pick us fresh fruit off the trees.  We hadn’t heard of any of them – Apu, Ackee, Tambarin, Jack fruit, ?

An old farm house in the hills around Montego Bay.

The boys enjoying our taxi tour.

Katie holding the Jamaican apples that Lee picked right from the tree for us.

The restaurant at the MBYC had a taco dinner special on so we splurged and ate onshore. As Katie’s birthday is in a few days she got to indulge in her favourite drink, a virgin Pina Colada.

Birthday drink!  Cheers!

So, this happened…

Posted by Scot.  Written January 31, 2014.

Last night, around 8:00, the kids were playing up on the trampolines, I was reading in my cabin, and Sara was hanging out in the cockpit.  As she was sitting there, she looked up when she heard a noise, and was surprised to see a boat about 3 feet away from our stern, with three men in it, and no lights on at all.  It was totally dark out, so she couldn’t really see them.

The buaxite plant in Discovery Bay.  Not really relevant to the story, but I didn't get any pictures that night, since it was dark.

“Uh, can I help you?” she asked them.

“We’re the coast guard,” came the reply.  “Just doing a routine check.”

“No you’re not,” she said.  “You don’t have any markings on your boat, and you don’t even have any running lights on, or a spotlight, or anything.”

“Oh, yeah,” they said.  They switched on some red and green running lights, and continued to drift up the side of our boat.

At this point, the kids were curious and had come around to see what was going on.  Alexander asked them if they were out diving or something, but they repeated that they were the coast guard.

While the kids were talking to them, Sara poked her head into my cabin.  “Scot, you need to come up right now.  You don’t need to do anything, but you just need these guys to see that there is another adult on board.”

Not knowing what was going on, I ran up the stairs, and saw the unmarked speedboat floating along side, with three figures in it that I couldn’t make out in the dark.

“Can I help you?”

“We’re the coastguard.  Just doing a routine check.”

“OK,” I said.  “Do you have any identification to prove to me that you’re the coast guard?”

“Uh, no, we forgot it.”  And with that, they revved up the boat and drove away.  I watched them go, and noticed that they didn’t approach either of the other boats in the anchorage.

Some of the other boats in Discovery Bay.  They were pretty close to us, so we weren't too worried.

After reassuring the kids that it was nothing to worry about, Sara and I sat down in the cockpit and discussed what we would do that night.  For sure we were locking the boat.  We took a handheld radio down into our cabin, and also our air horn.  There were other boats nearby, and lots of houses on shore, so we weren’t overly concerned.  But it was definitely a weird occurrence.

10 minutes later, the boat was back, still without lights on.  This time, I took out our super bright Lupine headlamp and shone it on them.  The boat was an unmarked, scraped up blue hulled speedboat, about 18’ long, with a few worn out looking bumpers hanging off the side.

Houses on the bay.

To my surprise, the three men in it were all in uniform of some kind.  Two of them wore camouflage, and the other wore an official-looking blue jumpsuit.  I kept the light trained on them so that we could see them, but they wouldn’t be able to see us.

“We just went to get our I.D. to prove we are the coast guard,” one of them said.  He held up a blue card that had a photo (which looked like him), a name, and the insignia of the Jamaican Defence Force.  It looked pretty legit.

“Yes, you see, we are really the coast guard. We are just doing routine patrols.  We’re the good guys!”
“Uh, OK,” we responded.  “You can see how we were a little nervous, having a boat come up to us in the dark, with no lights and no markings.  It seemed a little strange to us.  Ha, ha.  Anyway, good to see you are who you say you are.”

And with that, they disappeared back into the night.

Weird, or what?  We still locked our door last night.

Discovery in Discovery Bay

Posted by Katie.  Written Jan. 31, 2014.

These last few days we’ve been chilling in Discovery Bay.

One of the boats anchored next to us in Discovery Bay.

And I think we have found the right place to stay.  There are beaches right by a huge field of grass perfect for frisbees even though we played frisbee in the water.  There are lots of happy little fishes and the annoying sound of regae music in the night.

There are some big mansions in Discovery Bay.  We are anchored right in front of one.

In the mornings the wind shifts so that our stern is facing the exit of the bay which is away from the sun and makes our cockpit shady.  This bay isn’t the type you might call calm, but there isn’t much waves unless you catch another boat’s wake.

There is a reef keeping most of the waves out of the bay, but it is still a bit rolly.

The part that isn’t called calm is the wind.  It is usually a little hard in the mornings and by the end of the day it gets harder.  But it is pleasant to have wind rolling through our windows at the hottest time of day (the hottest time of day here is the afternoon.) If you don’t have any windows on the boat that are open for some reason and you are really hot then all you need to do is go to the front of the boat and you will be cooler!

More houses on Discovery Bay.

If you are wondering how there can be a lot of wind and not a lot of waves in one bay the truth is I don’t know so if you want to know you should comment on one of my Dads posts and ask him.

Another view of the bay.  The beach we played on is just at the top of the picture.

In Discovery bay this is the list of things we do: Breakfast, school, reading, Lego,

I made a whole Lego village.

lunch, Lego, swim or beach, dinner, reading, bed.

I'm sure glad we brought a big box of Lego to make being on the boat fun.

We also made some pretty awesome bread.

Alexander kneading the bread.

Thanks for reading!

Quiet Time On The Boat And Menu Caty

Posted by Alexander.  Written Jan.30

On occasion there is a magical time on the boat. A time where everybody is feeling lazy and for one reason or another settle themselves in one of the nooks and crannies of the boat.

Mom doing some route planning.

Dad updating the blog.

This is my favourite time as I am lazy most of the time and enjoy it when nobody disputes my right to be. The gentle rocking of the boat seems to quiet everything down and everything is perfect. Sadly these times are brief due to two ticking energy bombs known as Katie and Christopher.

Energy about to explode.

They can be still but never for very long and so that is why quiet time is an island of peace. Because most of the time someone is bumping around making noise on the boat. Don’t get me wrong, the bumpiness is great too but quiet time is special to me. Speaking of which the quiet time during which I wrote this has just ended. Already the volume is ramping up and lunch is being made.

Which brings us to the second section of this blog. Today we had a dually adorable and delicious surprise. Katie who loves to do lunch for us had written up a curly menu with appetizers, “Bevriges”, Main course, and dessert. She said that it was La Menu Caty (French for Katie).

The menu at the "Menu Caty" restaurant.  The prices are in "H", which means hugs.

We decided we would be to full to have both main courses and appetizers so we cut to the chase. Christopher and I ordered root beer syrup in fizzy water thanks to the soda stream. And we picked off the main course menu which consisted of soups or sandwiches. We had sandwiches.

Mom was “Caty’s” cook so she started to toast some bread. (Now make sure before you read the description of moms awesome sandwiches that you have recently had a meal because if you are hungry, reading this will make you starve.) When the toast popped mom took it and laid mozzarella cheese on one slice. Next she spread sliced tomato on the blanket of creamy cheese and put sliced turkey on. After which she administered lettuce and then blessed the whole concoction with salt and pepper.

Now this might sound like a regular sandwich to you, dear reader but when you are on a boat certain commodities such as Lettuce, cheese and sandwich meat are hard to come by. These sandwiches were awesome! As we ate the beautiful waterfront view of the Menu Caty was stunning.

The waterfront view at the Menu Caty.

View of Discovery Bay from the Menu Caty

We had some “yougurt” for desert (That’s how it was spelled on the menu). We paid Katie for the meal with hugs which was the price on the menu. After lunch Mom declared another quiet time and we came full circle. I love this boat. 

Waiting for Jamaica to surprise me

Posted by Scot.  Written Jan. 30, 2014.

Downwind sailing - one of the best things about Jamaica.

Nobody likes to be stereotyped, pigeonholed, or typecast.  But based on what we have seen so far, Jamaica isn’t doing much to fight it.

You can start with the reggae.  Now, I like reggae as much as the next guy.  In fact, back in my 20’s, I purchased and listened to Bob Marley’s “Legend” album until I knew it by heart.  (That’s right kids, actually purchased the whole album, in an ancient format called “cassette tape”.  No downloading back then.)  I can still pretty much sing along to the whole thing.  Not that you’d want to hear me do that.

But at the risk of offending an entire nation, can I point out that there are one or two other types of music in the world?  And there have been a few new songs recorded since Marley?  It blows me away that everywhere we’ve been, we actually hear as much reggae as the stereotype would have you believe.  In every restaurant, on every beach, and on every radio station.  Pretty much reggae 24/7.  Can that really be all anyone here listens to?  I’d ask someone, but I probably wouldn’t understand the answer.

Which brings me to stereotype number 2.  That Jamaican accent.  It is more or less exactly what you think it is.  Have you ever watched Futurama?  Do you know that Jamaican character?  No idea what his name is.  Anyway, that accent that you thought was just a joke, like a broad mockery of a far more subtle accent?  Nope.  That is really it.  That is how they talk.  The other day, the boys and I were listening to the radio on the boat, and we couldn’t help but laugh.  The D.J. sounded like what we used to think of as a parody of a Jamaican accent, but have now come to realize is the real thing.  Yeh mon.

And finally, stereotype number 3.  The ganja.  Yep, it’s really as prevalent as you have been lead to believe.  So far, we haven’t gone anywhere on land without coming across the sweet smell of pot somewhere.  And last night, on the boat, we all got a contact high coming from the boat next to us.  On shore, every few minutes, someone tries to sell me some “ ‘erbal, mon.”  OK, I know, coming from B.C. I can’t really make fun of all the pot.  In fact, it kind of smells like Rossland around here.

Cruise ship in Ocho Rios.  Time to start hustling for a buck!

Maybe the tight adherence to stereotypes is somehow tied to the Jamaican tourist industry.  It could just be that they are giving the people what they want.  The tourist industry here is one revved up machine.  We spent the night before last in a cruise ship port (Ocho Rios), and got to see the height of the system to separate tourists from their money.  Cruise ships go in there for the day, and the town puts on the full court press to drag as much cash out of them as possible while they are there.  As we walked through town, every 15 steps we were hit up by someone wanting to take us somewhere in a taxi, sell us some souvenirs, or braid our hair.  The Cuban jinteros, which we were warned about in the cruising guides, have nothing on these guys.  It really makes it hard to enjoy being ashore.  Wedged in between the cruise ship on one side, and the blaring beach party music on the other, Ocho Rios ranked up there as one of our least favorite places on our trip so far.

This guy was really interested in the houses on the beach in Discovery Bay.   He circled around and around. At least as annoying as a jet ski.

I guess if you want to find something surprising about Jamaica, you have to look to mother nature.  I don’t really know what we expected from the landscape, but it is greener and more mountainous than any of us would have guessed.  There is also more rain than we expected, but that is what keeps it so green.  I just wish there were some more peaceful, isolated bays to enjoy it from, without jet skis buzzing us every few minutes.

One thing that we did expect, but that we are enjoying, is the downwind sailing.  Having made it through the windward passage, we are finally heading west, with the trade winds.  That means our sailing days have all been with waves and wind pushing us along.  We’ve been able to fly our spinnaker quite a bit, and have really made good time, pushing the boat up to 8 or 9 knots frequently.  The auto pilot has a hard time steering when we are surfing moderate waves from behind, so it means more hand steering, but it has been fun sailing.  Here’s a video of Alexander keeping us on course as the spinnaker pulls us and the waves push us.  And no, the background music is not reggae.

 

Cruisin’ The Rio Grande

Posted by Alexander.  Written Jan.26, 2014

Yesterday morning, when the rain started to slow down and the sky cleared up, we had a taxi-van come and pick us up at the marina.  He drove us high up into the surrounding mountains, along a tiny, winding mountain road through the green jungle.  Eventually, we got to our destination.  The mighty Rio Grande!

Jamaican taxi through the mountains.

After we paid for our tickets and were given lifejackets (which we ended up using as backrests), we stepped onto the long bamboo rafts and sat on the benches. Christopher, Katie and Dad were on one and Mom and I were on the other.

Sunscreening before our river adventure.

The raft captains prodded the bottom and coaxed us gently down the river. Mom started talking with our captain who’s name we learned was Neville. He told us that there were 110 captains in a rotation to bring people down the river and sometimes he only got to bring people down once every two weeks!  The guides all build their own rafts from bamboo, which they buy from the land owners.  The rafts cost between $50.00 to $100.00 (American) to build, which doesn’t sound like much, but I think it is a lot to the average Jamaican.

Relaxing on the rafts.  Jasper is the snappy dressed captain on the left, and Neville is on the right.

Floating serenely on a low tech boat.

As we talked we rode over little sections of rapids but mostly the river was calm. Mom and I both agreed it was the most relaxed we had been in ages. Dad and my siblings rode along right next to us and talked to their captain, Jasper. Dad asked if we could try poling the raft and they said that there was a good spot further down the river.

Rapids!  This was about as rough as it got.

The river was brown because of the rains earlier that morning. I reached down to find it was quite chilly. The green mountains around us were full of jungle trees and vines. I asked if there were monkeys in Jamaica because if I were a monkey I would want to be there. Sadly no there were no monkeys. I also checked to see if there were crocodiles but Neville said that the Crocs were in church. Whatever that means. The captains told us that they liked it best when they had Canadians and Americans on their rafts. Basically they liked it when their riders could understand them.  Which is interesting, because the truth is we can barely understand the Jamaican “patois”, even when they are doing their best to speak to us.  When they are speaking to each other, they might as well be speaking a foreign language.  One phrase Jasper taught us, that we like, is “Howmuchaclock?”  Which is a Jamaican way to say “What time is it?”

A little power poling to keep us off the rocks (tilt-shift picture).

About halfway down the river we stopped at a little hut with a cooler on a beach. They offered us food but we had come prepared. We feasted on oranges and chips so we didn’t need to worry about hut food. Dad, Katie, Christopher and I decided it would be an awesome idea to go for a swim. We walked out into the river. It wasn’t very deep but the current was strong. We could see some vines hanging down in the river so we went above them and then swam over and rode the current towards the vines. Dad got a hold of some and I grabbed onto him and then grabbed onto another vine close by. Christopher’s vine snapped so he had to swim back to shore. Dad and I were doing okay until our vines broke too. Then we made the difficult swim back to shore against the current. There were vultures in the sky and we thought maybe they expected us to become food.

Riverside restaurant.  Fortunately, we had brought our own food.

Fighting the current in the brown river.  According to our captains, usually it is clear, but with all the rain lately, the run off has filled it with silt.

Later down the river as we came on a slow spot Neville and Jasper said Christopher and I could paddle. After a couple tries I think I got the hang of it and it was actually pretty fun. Christopher and I had a bit of a raft race and eventually Neville and Jasper took over again. We came out at a bay and stopped by a beach and that was it. It was one of the most fun thing I have done on this trip so if anyone reading this is in Jamaica go for it. And ask for Neville or Jasper – they were pretty good guides.  Actually, they asked us to write that, since they get to jump the rotation and take an extra trip if they get requested personally.  But really, they were pretty good, and I can recommend them both.

Contemplating my career as a raft captain.

Christopher racing me.