That Ill Fated Cruise and Roatan island

What should have been a wonderful vacation, turned out to be really tragic. Not for me and my family,  thank heavens but for the family of the lady who jumped overboard. 

You know, when I heard the announcement "man overboard" I thought it was a hoax. This is because some years ago on another Carnival cruise, just outside of Dominica there was a similar announcement and not only did we spend some four hours circling and looking for the body but so did a British frigate. It had been on some training mission in Dominica and came to assist. 

After a long search, they did an inventory and found no one missing. Coincidentally, it was  the 1st April so the captain concluded that the anonymous call they had received was some idiot's idea of an April fools joke! It was no joke however, just stupid and wasteful.

View from the manually operated swing bridge

In this case it was deathly serious though as a lady who was about 65 years old I hear, did jump to her death. I never  knew her or even see when her body was being recovered, but I know the grief that comes with  losing a loved one and as her son and daughter were there, I can just imagine how traumatic it is for them. Our discomfort only came from the fact that after the boat had to circle for about three hours searching for the body, they were low on fuel so had to turn back to Cozumel and bypass the Cayman visit. 

This was  especially annoying for me at first, for my friends were waiting there to take me on  a tour of that island which I had not visited in over 30 years and was looking forward to seeing them and the developments which I hear taking place there. We were all sooooo disappointed but as I said, our loss was not as great as that of the mourning family so we would just have to arrange for a future visit.

This cruise should have taken us to Cozumel, which I had visited twice before, Belize which I had visited at least 5 times but wanted to see the developments which had taken place. The other ports of call were Mahogany Cay  on Roatan island. I had never been there before and have now put the island on my bucket list for it appears to be quite attractive with lush mountains and white sands beaches. 

It has a population of some 70,000 I hear and a rich history similar to most former slave colonies. Although they had car rental agencies at the dock there and the island is really small,  because when I tour I like to stop and take in every thing, I did not try to get a car this time as I didn't want to rush.

My curiosity about Belize city was well placed as not much has changed in that city at all except there are people on the streets harassing tourists now. One man with locks whose teeth looked like Bully Bop's told us to stay on the main street as we could assaulted by gangs. When we asked others about the crime situation there they assured us that his was not true. As we walked back, he asked us to give him money for helping us and when I told him no, he shouted that I was mean and should not return to Belize. 

This made me feel so at home!

 We arrived there on the 18th August and another man tried to sell us a flag as he said it was their Independence Day. I never believed him anyway for had it been,  it would have been a holiday and signs of celebrations. I later researched it and discovered their Independence day is September 21. 

So be warned.

My main reason for visiting the town though was to look at the Swing Bridge as I thought that by now they must have moved from manual labour to machinery to move it. I could not believe they hadn't! 

I remember the many days I was rudely aroused from my sleep while staying at a hotel nearby, for the noise from the men pushing the bridge at 6 am to let the boats through was really horrendous!  I guess it is still a pestilence to those who have to reside nearby.

 I really could not believe the country had not progressed from that point some 15 years later! 

My one regret was that I was not able to visit San Pedro. This is a town in the southern part of the  Ambergris Cay. According to 2012 mid-year estimates, the town has a population of about 13,381 as is the second largest town in the Belize District.

I hear it is beautiful there but unfortunately during all the years I used to visit that country for work, I never heard about it so did not visit. I only subsequently heard about it from a cousin who lives in Canada but who spent many years there with her ex- husband who managed a hotel there, how fabulous it was. The water taxis did not leave till 1.30 pm  though which would have me returning too late for the ship. So next time.

The place I was really looking really really forward to was Cayman but fate intervened. The experience in Cozumel made up for everything else though. We had a really fabulous guide who took us to a Mayan holy site. His name was Angel and he was a proud Mayan. He was not only extremely informative but really passionate about his culture. This is never something you see in tour guides as they normally recite what is popular for tourists to hear. This guy spoke about how his culture was being adulterated by the Mexican establishment and insisted that his native language was not Spanish but Mayan.  He did the tour in English but we were all so impressed with him.

When we returned to Cozumel to drop off the body as a result of the suicide, we just walked around the town which is pleasant and touristy.

In Miami, I really had a great time with friends Joseph and Jackie and it was a good thing Jackie dropped me off early at the airport, for it was quite a drama, but not unpleasant. 

According to the security, they detected, wait for it........explosive residue on my hand luggage! 

A nice young man with locks (which he admitted it was for style not religion!) then went through my things piece by piece, rubbing everything on a strip then testing it on the machine.

Before a lady body searched me, she wanted to know if I had any aches or pains anywhere. I told her everywhere hurt as I had chic v which is partly true since the stupid pains from that virus do come back on occasion. The entire process took about 45 minutes but I feel better that security there is thorough. It certainly isn't in Jamaica for on a Jet Blue flight the next day, two women from here got into a fight and one drew out a razor and the other had pepper spray!

Man that is really disgraceful.

Independence Day at Kent Village

It was quite by coincidence that we ended up in Kent Village for Independence Day 2015, since that Village is somewhat synonymous with Jamaican Independence. This is because that is where the singer Eric Donaldson who is famous for winning festival songs, hails from.

Donaldson first made his name with the monster hit winner "Cherry Oh Baby" and in other  festival competitions followed up other hits such as "This is the Land of My Birth". In fact, he won four festival song competitions and when I asked two ladies in a shop at Kent Village why he no longer entered the festival song competition, they told me JCDC stopped him as he was winning too often. One then added "Festival nuh nice since im stap enter". I think I concur with that sentiment.

When Donaldson became famous, he named his commercial building in  his home town Cherry Oh Baby and still resides there, I am told.

Simpson  poses in front of Eric Donaldson's building 

Sheriff arranged this ride apparently for sentimental reasons as on her first ride with us she had "discovered" there as a cable car spanning the Rio Cobre River right there.

At the time we had stopped  there to buy snacks and on seeing the cable car, Heather, one of our founding members, had jumped on it and got a ride over the river.

Sheriff  returned to the area a few weeks ago and arranged for breakfast to be cooked on the property on the other side of the river. This meant finding a good cook and introducing herself to the owners, two brothers surnamed Rutty. They operate the farm across the river and the property has many huge hundred year old trees that provide great comfort for picnickers.

On an exploratory trip with the Sheriff  the Sunday before Independence, I learnt that the Ruttys operated a 152 acre orange farm  right there and the back of their farm joins the train line.  It is above the train line that the new highway from Inswood to Linstead is being built and we saw obvious signs of the construction on the hillside to the south. All the material the Rutty's needed to build their home and set up the farm was brought in by rail years ago.

Huge hundred year old trees made it great for picnics 

However to get over to Kent Village required them having to cross the river, so according to one brother, they had to use a bamboo raft when the river got swollen. Soon when they started to sell oranges to higglers, because of the huge rocks in the river they had to come up with a better strategy to transport the goods, so some 25 years ago they set up the cable car.

Richie in red shirt is the cable operator

Richie who is the operator told me he has been operating the cable car for 15 years and made a good living transporting higglers but now that a disease had devastated the orange grove, his income has dwindled to almost nothing.

He was therefore very happy to have Sheriff sweeten up his holiday with the 40 odd  adventurers who rode and walked to the area on independence day.

Alrick at the controls

Everyone had a ball and Alrick re-lived his childhood and got a learner's permit  to operate the cable car. Fortunately for Richie, he did not have the stamina to take everyone across so soon ran out of steam and Richie was able to reclaim his livelihood!

A few people were "fraidy pus" though and did not want to use that mode of transportation until they discovered that if they didn't, they wouldn't be getting any breakfast..

It was an absolutely wonderful day as  the water was nice and fresh due to the fact that it had rained  for a couple days in the gorge. The food too was delicious, ready on time and plenty and Sheriff had even organised a "security chief" to tend to our bicycles while we picnicked and frolicked in the river.

Of course in making the arrangements, she had the assistance of the Ayatollah  who ensured that transportation was adequate and available when we wanted it. Thanks to them, we had a ball and only had to get there by foot or bicycles, eat, pay our dues and have a wonderful time. That is true independence indeed!



Some photos compliments of Julian Dadag