My Drive Around Jamaica
by Howard Norfolk
Original to Aquarticles
I went to the Caribbean island of Jamaica, for the first time, in Winter
2003/4. Jamaica is popular with package tourists who want a sunny winter break at a
holiday resort. But idly laying on a beach all day and meeting only other tourists is not
what I like to do when I go to a new country. I want to see and learn as much about the
country as possible, and meet some local people.
I went with a friend, and we travelled all around the island using taxis
for each stage of the journey. We decided against renting a self-drive car, since my
Lonely Planet guidebook said that Jamaica is the third worst country in the World for
traffic accidents, after Ethiopia and India. (Lonely Planet also says that up to 40% of
Jamaicans smoke 'ganja,' which many of them see not as a drug but as a medicinal and
religious herb. Could this perhaps be why their driving is so bad?!).
We drove all around the island. Numbers refer to the places written
about below.
We saw lots of Jamaica's attractions: beaches, waterfalls, scenery,
colonial buildings, churches, old plantation houses, Bob Marley memories, Sir Noel
Coward's house, and so on. I'm also always interested in anything to do with fish
and wildlife, and the following photos show what I happened to find on the way. My aim was
not to catch native fish and bring them home. This would have been nice but was not
possible, since after Jamaica I was to go on to visit Cuba.
1. Negril
In Negril I met Elvis!
We were driving fast along the coast road near the resort town of Negril
when I spotted some fish carvings hanging on the side of a carver's shed. I asked
our taxi to stop and we had to back up. I'm glad we did -
 
Yes, the carver's name was Elvis....Elvis Morris, actually.
I entered "Elvis World of Art & Craft."
CLICK ON PHOTOGRAPHS FOR ENLARGEMENTS, THEN
GO "BACK."
  
There were lots of fish carvings on the walls of the shed, and on a
table.
Elvis posed with the fish on the left, which I bought. I talked to
him about his fish carvings, so he gathered up a collection of other fish especially for
the photo on the right.
The large fish resemble saltwater angelfish.
I liked this one, but it was too big to carry home.
September 2004: I received the news that Elvis'
house and business were badly damaged by Hurricane Ivan. Hopefully he will start up again
soon.
2. Lucea
Lucea ("Lucy") is a small port town largely unspoiled by tourists. It
has some old British buildings, a museum, and the remains of a fort.
Fort Charlotte was named after the wife of King George III of
England.
 
In Lucea I met two leading Jamaican fish breeders: Robin Hall and
Ralph Holding. I wrote about them in my "Aquarists of Jamaica" articles. There
is a link to these articles at the bottom of this page.
3. Montego Bay
Montego Bay is a port which first grew with the sugar trade. Sugar declined after the
British Empire's emancipation of slavery in 1834, and bananas took over. The banana boats
brought tourists starting as early as the 1880's, and now 'MoBay' has its own airport and
cruise ship terminal, and is very popular with holidaymakers.
It was Christmas-time, and Santa was dressed for the North Pole even
though it was about 80F !
Montego Bay's main street features this old jail, "The
Cage," which was built in 1806. The statues represent Sam Sharp, who led a rebellion
against slavery in 1831.
Just along the street was what I was looking for - "Exotic
Birds and Pets," the town's pet store. It was upstairs above "Value Buys."
I met the owner, Tony Hew, who is on the left. He knew several fish
breeders who sold fish to him, and it was through his suggestions that I met the aquarists
that I did.
Tony had this stand of clean, well-maintained fish tanks.
 
The tank of large fish on the left includes "Tinfoil barbs $600
each" (US$13), and on the right are "Oscars $300 each" (US$6.50).
The shop was spacious, and had aquarium kits and other supplies for
sale.
About half the space was devoted to birds. It was very noisy!
Montego Bay's best known beach is Doctor's Cave Beach,
which was founded in the 1880's. You have to pay to get in, but it has a bar, restaurants,
deck-chairs and umbrellas for rent, and even a shop with Internet facilities.
From the dock we went for a ride in a glass-bottomed boat:
We sped away from the beach and all the people sunbathing and
swimming...
...and then slowed down to look at coral reefs through the glass
bottom of the boat.
 
We came to an area where the boatmen regularly fed these 'sergeant
major' damselfish. The fish always waited in this one spot for the boats to come and feed
them.
4. Greenwood Great House
Popular tourist attractions in Jamaica are the "Great Houses," which
are mansions built by British sugar plantation owners, mostly in the late 1700's.
Greenwood Great House (built 1760) is particularly famous for its
collection of antique musical instruments.
 
This is the back of the house. It is on a hill, and the rooms on the
other side have wonderful views of the coast and the sea.
The rooms are full of antiques. This is the formal dining room.
I met the current owners of the house, Bob Betton and his wife Anne, who
is from New Zealand. They still live there and let tourists pass through the rooms they
use every day. (Their bedroom TV is hidden in a closet!).
Inevitably our conversation turned to fish, and believe it or not Bob
turned out to be a fishkeeper! He told me he'd built a pond in a secluded part of his
garden, and that there was a cement bowl in the middle of his front lawn. He also said
that after his daughter had grown up and left he had no further use for his swimming pool,
so he'd put koi in it to eat the mosquitoes. He showed me his ponds:
Here is Bob with his double pond, which is in a shady spot next to
an outbuilding. When it rains, water from the building's roof is used to refill the pond.
 
I spotted koi, goldfish, swordtails and angelfish...and this frog (Eleutherodactylus
sp.?), which was perched on a lily pad.
The bowl on the lawn contains flowering water lilies, and swordtail
fish.
5. Dunn's River Falls and Somerset Falls
There are scenic waterfalls throughout Jamaica, as the mountain streams rush to
the sea. Some of them have been fenced-in and developed as tourist parks.
The best known is Dunn's River Falls, near Ocho Rios, where visitors
pay for guides to lead them hand in hand up the slippery cascades and pools.
 
Somerset Falls is a little further along the coast, in a gorge full
of lush tropical vegetation.
6. Dolphin Cove
A new attraction at the tourist town of Ocho Rios is Dolphin Cove:
Admission to Dolphin Cove is US$15...
...and depending on the package they pick, tourists can "swim
with the dolphins" for US$79-145.
There are some nurse sharks in a smaller lagoon. Here a staff member
is feeding one, by hand.
Sharks' jaws and teeth are displayed.
There is a pond with some nice koi.
 
On sloping ground behind the dolphin pool is the "Jungle
Trail" - a mini-zoo with donkeys, parrots, and reptiles such as this green iguana and
these Jamaican slider turtles.
Some creatures are there of their own free will. A little Jamaican
grey anole ran along the fence of the cafe where we had a snack.
7. The North Coast
The North Coast has some spectacular scenery.
Playwright and author Sir Noel Coward lived in Jamaica. This is the
view from his house, "Firefly." Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond
novels, also lived near here, and so did Errol Flynn, and Johnny Cash.
A wild deserted beach.
8. Rafting on the Rio Grande
We reached the town of Port Antonio, and one of the things to do there is go
rafting on the Rio Grande:
  
We drove into the hills to where these bamboo rafts were waiting on
the river bank, and joined some other tourists for an all-day drift downstream.
 
The river was rapid in places, but the rickety-looking rafts were
quite stable and my camera didn't get wet!
 
In some places the river had steep rocky banks.
We stopped for a nice lunch at "Betty's Riverside
Canteen," where Betty cooked "chicken, fried dumplings, rice & peas,"
and of course also sold bottled beer and soft drinks.
 
We didn't see any fish, but we did see other wildlife, such as these
snowy egrets and this fish hawk. I asked our boatman what kinds of fish were in the river,
and he told me that there were mullet, snook, gobies, tarpon, and three species of
crayfish.
 
The river widened and slowed down as we neared the end of our trip.
We walked to the rugged beach where the Rio Grande enters the sea.
Back in Port Antonio these yachts sat calmly in the sunset.
9. The Blue Lagoon
Just east of Port Antonio is the Blue Lagoon, where Brooke Shields swam in that
movie.
 
Access is through a luxury bar. Some cruise ship passengers were
enjoying a change of scene from their on-board bar.
 
The Lagoon is fed by underwater springs. Apparently the colour of
the water varies according to the time of day.
10. Kingston
We continued around the coast to Jamaica's capital city of Kingston.
In Kingston I met Noel Swaby, who has an aquarium store and who
breeds fish on a large scale. There is a link to the article I wrote about Noel at the
bottom of this page.
11. Spanish Town
Just west of Kingston is Spanish Town, which was the old Spanish capital, and then the
British capital from 1655 until 1872.
 
Some of the old buildings are restored. This one is now the Local
Government Office. Since it was Christmas-time, a Christmas tree was on the lawn.
Iron Bridge was built in1801 on foundations that date from 1675. It
is the only bridge of its kind left in the Americas.
Along the coast road, bridges cross other tropical rivers.
12.Black River
After a stay at the inland town of Mandeville, we returned to the coast and the town of
Black River. This is the kind of town I like: small, unpretentious, and not much visited
by tourists. It does have one tourist attraction though; boat trips on the Black River
itself, which runs through the town.
Our guide told us that the Black River is the longest navigable river in Jamaica - for 13
miles, of which the first 8 miles are saltwater.
 
We went on a pontoon boat like this one.
 
The river is wide, and mangrove trees line its banks. Our guide told
me that fish found here include barracuda, jack snappers, perch, snook, tarpon and
mullet. He said that manatees and sharks used to come in with the tides, but the
water is now too polluted for them.
We drifted close to a snowy egret that was nesting nearby...
...and kept our eyes open for crocodiles. There weren't very many
crocodiles here - we saw only three. Our pilot seemed to know where to look for them, and
even had a pet name for each one!
 
We had to turn around at the Coast Road bridge, which our boat
couldn't pass under. The river became smaller after this. Some boys were fishing with rod
and line from the bridge and had caught a jackfish and a juvenile grey snapper.
13.The Cockpit Country
Our tour of Jamaica was nearly over. We had a day trip northwards past the
"Cockpit Country" plateau and back to Montego Bay.
A highlight is "Bamboo Road," where the biggest bamboos I
have ever seen arch across the road.
I can't write about Jamaica without mentioning sugar. Our driver
stopped and cut some sugar cane for us. Kids in Jamaica must love it - they don't have to
beg for a chocolate bar - sweet stuff to chew on is all around them!
We stopped for a break at a place called Haddo, where this man had a
carving studio. I bought the red-coloured angelfish he is holding.
 
I wish I could have bought this fish, which looks like an adult grey
snapper (black snapper, mangrove snapper), but it was too big to carry home. If I were a
Pisces I might have bought the plaque!
14. Back in Montego Bay
Back in Montego Bay the beach offered a welcome rest.
And then I flew across to Cuba. It would have been nicer to go on
this boat....maybe next time?
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