After a few days in Ile à Vache we sailed to Jamaica, the wind was in the good direction and we didn’t have to use the engine that much. Bowden Harbour is at the south-east coast of Jamaica and not touristic at all. All farmers here. Customs, immigration and quaranty is very easy, you just call the coastguard and they will arrange everything for you and a good thing is that during the week it cost you nothing at all 🙂 . From here you can go to Morant Bay which is a bigger place where they have everything, you can go by bus or route taxi for the same price. The route taxi is more comfortable as they put 19 people in the bus where they have only 12 seats, but it is possible, you don’t fall over in the turns 🙂 . Internet is also available if they have simcards, they were out of stock at Digicel but Flow is also a good provider and they had some left. 2.250JA$ for 3 GB is not too much, 100 JA$ is only € 0,70. There is a big market with lots of vegetables and fruit and the people are very friendly, not a bad place to stay for some time and lovely food.
Now we can arrange for Volvo to send the MDI and a spare one over to Jamaica with FedEx to Kingstown. The parts are very fast in Kingstown but there is a problem with the clearance at customs. You have to fill in a form to authorise FedEx to do the clearance for you. But first it is Christmas and we are going to the square, a crossing, we have been told that there is music all day, food and drinks. Well we are miss informed, the village is very quiet, we heard the beating music last evening until early in the morning, so everybody must be still sleeping. Our Christmas food is chicken and beef with rice and beans in a plastic box, well after that a little hiking is a good plan.
When we arrive in Old Pera, the surrounding is lovely, they are building up the music boxes for the Christmas Day party, you know one thing if you stay you won’t hear anything for another day.
After Christmas we go to Kingstown to see how we can manage to get our package. Route taxi to Morant Bay and then the bus to Kingstown, normally you’re sitting with 20 people in this bus but in Jamaica you can sit or hang with 35 in the same bus. Taxi to the FedEx office and they send us to the airport maybe we can arrange something to get our package but it will be difficult. Mr. Stewart our taxi driver is so nice too wait for us at the FedEx office and it appears that he will going to be our rescuer. As we don’t have a Jamaican tax number the customs officer asked Mr. Stewart if he will be so nice to let us use his so we can do the “short” procedure 🙂 . And so it happens, starting at ticket window number one: filling in the forms and sign them, window number two: deliver the forms, back to window one: pay, go to window number three and waiting, waiting, waiting till it’s your turn. Open the package and then you know what you have to pay. Window number four: pay, back to three to collect your package and then window five: give the woman the form that you have collect your package and show her the goods. After two hours, well it is the short procedure, we are ready and short of money. We have to go to an ATM because else we cannot pay our taxi driver.
In Orange Street, a very busy market street in Down Town Kingstown, see of you can find me on the picture, we can take the bus back home. Next day we mount the MDI and … sh.. now power, but after disconnecting and connecting all the connections the power is on and with a push on the button the motor starts.
Happy New Year to everybody and all the best for 2018.