Jamaica Trip #1
Arnett Howard
Trip 1, September 25-October 2, 1985 with John Coke, Air Jamaica, Newark-Montego Bay, return Kingston, Newark.
Day one: John and I stayed in a different place each night. First day with Arthur Nelson, an engineer and school friend of John’s. Arthur owned a shopping strip center, his wife ran a grocery. Their home was out in the countryside and the living room was complete open to the elements. I remember eating a very hot pepper for dinner and sweet sop, a very tangy, sour fruit.
Day two; Negril. We journeyed by minibus to Negril and visited several sites on the cliff, the Mahogany Inn was under construction and I saw a perfect sunset the first night there. The construction crew slept in tents on the beach and cooked over campfire. John danced to my new boombox and the workers laughed into convulsions.
We went to the Tree House, met Jimmy Jackson and John negotiated a room price of $22.00 US for a standard room. We sat on the porch and enjoyed the laidback swing chairs that were very relaxing, as well as having fresh bananas hanging from the rafters of the porch.
I heard legend that Jimmy Jackson, a small, rich man, swam a mile each day. I awoke at first light to meet this superman. I went out lobster fishing and snorkling on a coral reef with two young men. They spoke Jamaican English but it was French to me.
We took a series of cabs and minibuses from Negril to Lucea, back to Montego Bay (Mobay) and stayed with the Nelsons that night.
Day Three: We were determined to get to Falmouth or Runaway Bay, on the North Coast, where John, a noted architect, had designed a vacation home for a Jamaica/New York family but never stayed there. We bussed to Falmouth, had lunch and caught a ride to the property from a businessman dining at our restaurant.
The home was incredibly beautiful, full of rich woods. We were right next to an FM transmitter, FAME FM, and the radio stayed on all night, filled with exciting reggae sounds. We rested in luxury.
Day Four: The next morning, we had a one mile walk from the home in Runaway Bay to the main road and the mosquitoes feasted on us along the wooded road. We caught a bus into Ocho Rios and had a breakfast of eggs and curried goat. The goat was the boniest meal that I had ever encountered, except for fish. Maybe I’ve had goat once since then.
Our next transportation took us to the coastal town of Port Maria, where we wander the marketplace looking for a driver that would take us towards Buff Bay, the closest town to John’s estate, Fish Dun, in Chepstowe, the northern reaches of the famed Blue Mountains. In no hurry our driver found enough passengers to fill his 1964 Plymouth Valiant and we journeyed inland for the first time.
Towards the late afternoon our driver delivered us to Chepstow and we walked the remaining distance to Fish Dun. I felt like we had completed a safari from tne humid sea levels of the coast to the slow four thousand foot climb into the cooler mountains.
Within minutes of geting to the cabin that John had built on fifty acres, we were decending a path that led to the Spanish River, a stream that began above John’s property, however he had the first property on it’s path to the sea. We began disrobing as we got father down the path and when we got to the right spot, we dropped everything and immersed ourselves in the cool, virgin waters.
Heaven must be like the Blue Mountains; waterfalls, pools, crystal clear, drinkable. My body temperature met the temps of the refreshing waters and John and I spent a good hour walking upriver, through gentle falls, pausing to allow ourselves to be massaged by the freshness of a new cascade, ooohing and aahing to the climax that awaited us after a couple thousand miles of travel.
Yes, I’m convinced that Heaven is in the Blue Mountains. We slogged downstream and when we rounded a corner, we encountered Dean and Sandra, also in their natural state, splashing in a pool close to the cabin. They were newlywed; Dean a tradesman from Columbus and Sandra, a recent Miss Jamaica from Kingston. Where else but in Heaven would you be introduced to Miss Jamaica au natural?
Mrs. Thompson was a Chepstow neighbor who was John’s property manager and cook.She killed a chicken for our evening meal and I must say, that yardbird did not die in vain; Mrs. Thompson gave him an exquisite preparation.
John’s cabin was wellbuilt, with its galvanized roof and rain barrels to collect fresh water and quite far removed from the luxury that we had been resting in during our gad about the coastline. Oil lamps provided our nightime light and I took some memorable photos of Dean and Sandra holding hands in that soft amber glow that illuminated their skin.
Heaven gets a lot of rain and a galvanized roof becomes a drum in a tropical storm. More beauty to enjoy.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
The Road to Negril, Jamaica
Columbus to Charlotte to Mobay to Negril, June 22,2006 7am-2 pm.
This, my twenty-fifth trip, might have been my quickest; all flights were on schedule and we gained an hour in Jamaica. Sangster International Airport held a surprise; thirteen new gates and, for the first time ever, jetways.
A shiny new wing has been newly opened to accommodate more arrivals and it seemed as though ten planes had arrived between 11 am and noon on that Thursday morning. I have never seen a long lines to clear immigration in Mobay. Good for the tourist industry.
I also heard that the government owns Air Jamaica once again. The new prime minister is Portia Simpson Miller, inaugurated in April, 2006 and the first female to hold the office in the country’s forty-five year history.
The Road to Negril is as close to a superhighway as it will be; smooth asphalt, free of the giant holes that caused drivers to swerve for decades. The bridges still slow traffic because of unevenness and there still remains a one lane bridge before the village of Lucea. But a step forward that deserves applause.
The Columbus gang, joined by Kevin Howard from Houston and Gerald Howard from Atlanta, filled many of the rooms and all of the ocean view suites. Party Central was established in Suite G, with the Howard Brothers having the rental car to make the runs to the carryout for Appleton rums and mixers. Other intoxicants appeared, thanks be to Jah, who provides for the relaxation of his children.
And also due to Jah’s loving hands, the sands return to the beaches of the Long Bay of Negril. Hurricanes and severe tropical storms eroded the famed white sands, but locals say that the ocean replenished the beaches naturally.
The waters were eighty-three to eighty-five degrees, clean, clear, very salty and full of friendly animals. Buoyancy was enjoyed by all.
I started the first three mornings of my vacation with a two mile walk to the Villa that lies north of the soccer field and public beach, which has been cleared and amazingly, turned into public park land, complete with a beach house and showers. The villa is the site of a not-so-famous wreck, the Insanity Sea Bar, that I have been diving since the boat went down in a storm in January, 1993.
My brothers and I went out together the first morning and said, “It’s going to be luck if we find this thing.” But since I have dived the Insanity over fifty times and only failed to find it once, cha-ching, I spotted it, or what little was left of the hull and twin diesel motors. When I looked up, I saw that a red buoy, newly installed by the local government to mark lanes for motor boat traffic, was marking the wreck site. Thanks and praises again.
On four morning dives (free dives, snorkels without tanks), I saw three sizable sting rays and on dive three, with Lynette and Andy Knight, as witnesses, we were treated to an appearance by a spotted eagle ray. It appeared, sailing over the hull just as we were ending our dive, accompanied by four ramora, sucker fish that swim in the ray’s shadow.
According to Marinebio.org, where these photos were ripped “ Aetobatus narinari, aka White-spotted Eagle ray, has a long snout, flat and rounded like a duck's bill, a thick head, and a pectoral disc with sharply curved, angular corners, and no caudal fin, a long whiplike tail, with a long spine near the base, behind small dorsal fin.” It was a beautiful animal, it made a slow, graceful circle around us and allowed us within fifteen feet. We spent what seemed to me three minutes with the animal and I snapped the last two frames with Lynette’s underwater camera. I hope the shots were this good. Another blessed moment.
But our goal when we planned this trip in late 2004, was to salute our Jamerican sistah, Gail Jackson, on the fiftieth anniversary of her birth. Since our first meeting in 1987, when she hosted Arnett Howard’s Creole Funk Band for the first time, we have been family. She is originally from Pittsburgh and graduated from Cornell University in hospitality management. She has been the driving force at the Negril Tree House Resort since 1982 after marrying hotel founder and successful businessman/agriculturalist Jimmy Jackson.
For twenty years the Howard Brothers have partied with our sistah in Jamaica, Columbus, New Orleans, Austria and survived the life long enough for all of us to pass the BIG FIVE-OH.
Another blessing was that one of our long time sistahs, Stephanie Harris, was with us on the trip with her husband Fred Harris. Stephanie has been a bright moment in our lives since 1970 when, lucky for us, she made the mistake of dating our neighborhood friend and fellow musician “Cheap Chuck” Davidson. She later married Peter LeDuff, a New Orleans native of Creole descent. I began visiting them in New Orleans in 1976 and immersed myself in Creole Louisiana culture, never to be the same again.
Wayne and Willa Owen, our fearless leaders, successfully steered another tour through the mazes of the Third World and next November, 2007, want to navigate the western Caribbean by cruise ship through the Panama Canal. All aboard!
This, my twenty-fifth trip, might have been my quickest; all flights were on schedule and we gained an hour in Jamaica. Sangster International Airport held a surprise; thirteen new gates and, for the first time ever, jetways.
A shiny new wing has been newly opened to accommodate more arrivals and it seemed as though ten planes had arrived between 11 am and noon on that Thursday morning. I have never seen a long lines to clear immigration in Mobay. Good for the tourist industry.
I also heard that the government owns Air Jamaica once again. The new prime minister is Portia Simpson Miller, inaugurated in April, 2006 and the first female to hold the office in the country’s forty-five year history.
The Road to Negril is as close to a superhighway as it will be; smooth asphalt, free of the giant holes that caused drivers to swerve for decades. The bridges still slow traffic because of unevenness and there still remains a one lane bridge before the village of Lucea. But a step forward that deserves applause.
The Columbus gang, joined by Kevin Howard from Houston and Gerald Howard from Atlanta, filled many of the rooms and all of the ocean view suites. Party Central was established in Suite G, with the Howard Brothers having the rental car to make the runs to the carryout for Appleton rums and mixers. Other intoxicants appeared, thanks be to Jah, who provides for the relaxation of his children.
And also due to Jah’s loving hands, the sands return to the beaches of the Long Bay of Negril. Hurricanes and severe tropical storms eroded the famed white sands, but locals say that the ocean replenished the beaches naturally.
The waters were eighty-three to eighty-five degrees, clean, clear, very salty and full of friendly animals. Buoyancy was enjoyed by all.
I started the first three mornings of my vacation with a two mile walk to the Villa that lies north of the soccer field and public beach, which has been cleared and amazingly, turned into public park land, complete with a beach house and showers. The villa is the site of a not-so-famous wreck, the Insanity Sea Bar, that I have been diving since the boat went down in a storm in January, 1993.
My brothers and I went out together the first morning and said, “It’s going to be luck if we find this thing.” But since I have dived the Insanity over fifty times and only failed to find it once, cha-ching, I spotted it, or what little was left of the hull and twin diesel motors. When I looked up, I saw that a red buoy, newly installed by the local government to mark lanes for motor boat traffic, was marking the wreck site. Thanks and praises again.
On four morning dives (free dives, snorkels without tanks), I saw three sizable sting rays and on dive three, with Lynette and Andy Knight, as witnesses, we were treated to an appearance by a spotted eagle ray. It appeared, sailing over the hull just as we were ending our dive, accompanied by four ramora, sucker fish that swim in the ray’s shadow.
According to Marinebio.org, where these photos were ripped “ Aetobatus narinari, aka White-spotted Eagle ray, has a long snout, flat and rounded like a duck's bill, a thick head, and a pectoral disc with sharply curved, angular corners, and no caudal fin, a long whiplike tail, with a long spine near the base, behind small dorsal fin.” It was a beautiful animal, it made a slow, graceful circle around us and allowed us within fifteen feet. We spent what seemed to me three minutes with the animal and I snapped the last two frames with Lynette’s underwater camera. I hope the shots were this good. Another blessed moment.
But our goal when we planned this trip in late 2004, was to salute our Jamerican sistah, Gail Jackson, on the fiftieth anniversary of her birth. Since our first meeting in 1987, when she hosted Arnett Howard’s Creole Funk Band for the first time, we have been family. She is originally from Pittsburgh and graduated from Cornell University in hospitality management. She has been the driving force at the Negril Tree House Resort since 1982 after marrying hotel founder and successful businessman/agriculturalist Jimmy Jackson.
For twenty years the Howard Brothers have partied with our sistah in Jamaica, Columbus, New Orleans, Austria and survived the life long enough for all of us to pass the BIG FIVE-OH.
Another blessing was that one of our long time sistahs, Stephanie Harris, was with us on the trip with her husband Fred Harris. Stephanie has been a bright moment in our lives since 1970 when, lucky for us, she made the mistake of dating our neighborhood friend and fellow musician “Cheap Chuck” Davidson. She later married Peter LeDuff, a New Orleans native of Creole descent. I began visiting them in New Orleans in 1976 and immersed myself in Creole Louisiana culture, never to be the same again.
Wayne and Willa Owen, our fearless leaders, successfully steered another tour through the mazes of the Third World and next November, 2007, want to navigate the western Caribbean by cruise ship through the Panama Canal. All aboard!
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