Trek to Alligator Pond.

Wi nevva even catch cole!😭

That's the fate of fisherfolk. Sometimes the fish are running and sometimes they keep their mouths shut.

About a week ago, we went out from our usual spot in Duncans, Trelawny, but not even the fisherman who took us got a bite.

So,  having been told that Alligator Pond in Manchester had better fishing grounds, we drove over three hours for the big catch.

Shanti who took us out

We stopped at Sunny Isle Cay. Last year's hurricane wrecked sections of it.

This is by Sunny Isle Cay off the coast of Alligator Pond. 

The only thing we caught all morning was sea weed.😭

Three times I thought I got a bite and it was sea grass. Not even the fisherman got a nibble.

That area would be great for manatee (sea cow) but we ate them into virtual extinction on the south coast.

Anyway it was a good trek as we got an Airbnb and lymed at Little Ochi the night before.

Our Airbnb 

Port Kaiser and Lovers Leap in the distance.

Hanging out at the Airb&b.

Lots of fishing boats around

David, Bernie, Joan, Kai, Father Topping

Mitzie and David 

Mr and Mrs Evans who organized the trek. They gave us lots of fried lobster and curried crab😋

David and his dad

Yup we came home empty handed, but next year we gonna catch those critters .

 I can't believe it's tomorrow that I have to leave😭. 

How time flies when u having fun.

Thor's gift.

 His name is Shawn Richardson and he has become the second greatest gift our late, murdered son Thor has given us.

The first of was of course his son Shadrach who was only six weeks old when Thor was so suddenly and tragically taken from us.

Shawn with his racing Bimmer!

Shawn had been his best friend for around fifteen years and eventually became a kind of surrogate son of mine.

I have probably known him from he was around 10 years old and when Thor was murdered, we both leaned on each other for comfort.

He has always loved tinkering with cars,  so later pursued his passion and has for years operated his own garage.

I have therefore always relied on  him as a dependable asset, whenever I am buying, selling or needed repairs for my own vehicles. This has from time to time even had him coming to rescue me when the vehicle broke down on the road. He would often lend me something when necessary, to drive while mine was being repaired.

When my brother Bernie bought a vacation home in Jamaica and over the years imported cars to leave there for when it visits, Shawn has been the person to keep them in good running order between his visits.

However, this July (2025,) on this latest visit Shawn did not go the extra mile, but an extra hundred miles for us!

For on Friday as we made our way from Duncans to Montego Bay for our regular domino/dinner session, the Land Cruiser started to show signs of overheating. So we turned back and called Shawn. It was quite late and Kingston is over 100 miles away.

But would you believe that he left Kingston after work, drove to Duncans arriving after 10 pm, and while we slept, changed the thermostat on the vehicle, road tested it, slept in one of the visitor's rooms and left early next morning to drive back to Kingston? 

I never even saw him!

When he worked on the car he realized some other parts were old, so he told my brother that he would buy the new parts in Kingston and return on Sunday evening to replace them.

On Monday morning we thought he had not yet come until Bernie went outside and saw the old parts on the ground!

 He later learned that Shawn and an assistant had arrived after midnight, changed the parts, had dinner and watched a movie, then left early morning while 6 of us slept deeply and heard nothing!

This was absolutely amazing. There is no doubt I my mind that Shawn is Thor's special gift to us, that just keeps on giving.♥️

NCB sucks😡

 Is it possible to get customer service anywhere which is worse  than what the National Commercial Bank (NCB) offers?

I hardly think that is possible!

Can you believe that they apparently do not service their ATM machines and clearly don't give a damn that some people may not be able to afford the fare to travel from point to point to find one that works!!

Recently the newspaper carried an article about the major share holder,  billionaire Michael  Lee- Chin, shaking up the management because no dividend had been paid for three years. 

Does he care equally about the poor or crippled who have to travel from point to point to find one of their machines that work? 

Thank heavens I am not one of their customers.

My frustration with this bank  stems from the fact that apparently, they have a monopoly on regional ATM's but don't take that monopoly seriously.

I am staying in the Duncan's area of Trelawny where they have a NCB machine at the supermarket. But last week all I could get was a message that they had no money. So I  went to the next one that is close to Glistening Waters by the old Road leading into Falmouth.

Same crap, so I had to wait till we were heading to Ocho Rios to get a machine operated by Sagicorp bank, that works.

And today, same crap at the same two machines in Trelawny.

This time we had to head to BNS in Falmouth where they have four working machines outside the branch.

My information is that the NCB branch has three machines outside at their Falmouth branch and most times they are also down! Also, there is only one human teller inside to serve the needs of it's customers!

Does this sound like an organization that cares about the poor who have no private transportation and must depend on route taxies or other public transportation to get access to their own money?

Disgraceful .

No place like home

"There’s no place like home" is probably the most overused cliché ever developed, but it’s used so much because it’s so true.

Beautiful Silver Sands beach

 At least in my case, for there is nothing I look forward to more than my annual visits home, to Jamdung, Jamaica, whatever we lovingly call it.

Be it reconnecting with good friends, the dominoes, eating real food, the incomparable beaches, the cycling, the fishing, whatever, its simply wonderful.

This year it was a different type of fishing for me, although I had no success there.

 Anyway, my brother Bernie had become so tired of hearing me grudgingly complain about how he caught a few large barracudas (pictures displayed on his wall no less) while I had never even had the opportunity, that he arranged for me to go with his dedicated fisherman Yusafta.

I don’t take chances however, for they had gone to Barracuda Alley the previous week and came back empty handed. 

So since I couldn’t face the possibility of such an outcome, I told Yusafta that if we didn’t get a hit there within an hour, we should go to the regular spots where we were at guaranteed to catch butter fish, welchmen etc for breakfast!

Luckily I did, for we travelled miles out to sea to the appropriately named place where the water is around 300 feet but never even got a hit! I guess we should have been forewarned that they were not running since we saw no other fisher folk heading in that direction.

We did run into a fisherman who on pulling in his fish pot, saw that a huge conger eel inside eating out his catch, so he was in the process of killing it.

After an hour out there, I didn’t feel badly as the Yusafta never got hit either.

So we did as I suggested and at least got breakfast plus a conger eel which Yusafa said he would take for a lady who loved to eat them. I had tried the fried conger eel once but really never liked it, so happily donated it to her dinner.

Barracuda Alley faces a recently built Spanish hotel located in Coral Springs, between Duncans and Falmouth, (Trelawny).  I must admit it is most unimpressive and unattractive looking  from the sea as it looks like a huge prison with its solid blocks. I hope it’s more attractive from the land side!

The new Spanish hotel is unattractive from the sea

I love Silver Sands and was so happy to be there with my brother and sister in law Judy, at their home “Winedown.”                                                                                Ran into Lisa at the beach there too. Then learnt that my former sister in law Betty, children and grandchildren were at a cottage almost behined us, so vistied them briefly.

    

During my stay, as usual the sea was flat and wonderful, only becoming rough on my last day there.                                                                                                                                                         I also enjoyed riding there, as it is nice and undulating although for the first two days, I could not conquer the hills. By day 3 I did though and even found a big bearing guinep tree at the top of one hill, where I could get refreshed.😋                                                                                                                                                        You see I now reside in flat, boring Florida which does nothing for your riding muscles, so being back in the hills is always a treat. Anyway I was spoilt by our riding group Fun and Thrills  whose riding expeditions involve going out into the country parts, swimming in a cool clean refreshing river then eating the most wonderful Jamaican breakfast before driving or even sometimes riding home. (Check out some of the Fun and Thrills blogs right here. They were also the basis for the Gleaner series; "Enjoying the Jamaican outdoors.”)                                                                                                                        The people who I could ride with in Florida, ride, ride, ride for around 20 miles to some place, then ride ride ride back. 

No fun or thrills on their rides!😕

Charles the 1st leads the troops, Charles11 behind.

So, when I arrived in Kingston, it was wonderful to get back with some friends from that wonderful club. We drove to Port Royal, parked, rode to the round about at the airport then returned to Port Royal where we lymed with cold beers, conch soup and guess what, jerked pork and fried bammy.

I was in my element as I had never had jerked pork in Port Royal as it has always been the fish capital of Jamaica. However, my friend Chuckie who is like me a porkist, had discovered the jerked pork there and surprised me. It tasted good too. 

Yummy. that made my day.

Gathering round the jerk pork😋

At Port Royal I saw that the cruise ship pier had been completed (but I was not allowed inside.) Also, for the first time, compliments of Grace, I learnt that there was still standing, part of the structure of the Woman’s Jail there which had been built before the 1692 earthquake destroyed the Wickedest city in the world!

Outside the restored Women's jail

Yup as I said, there’s no place like home, for not only do I get to reconnect with some of my dearest friends, but also there is never a visit when I do not discover something new.

Sweet Memories of  the return to Jamdung 2022

Outside the new cruise ship pier in Port Royal

This special barracuda bait never helped😡

When it gets rough at Silver Sands

 Some pics supplied by Charles Simpson and Grace Perez

Ride to Dornoch

The Dornoch that we sought.

The Dornoch that we got!

According to the late, brilliant Albert Einstein,"Reality is merely an illusion" but boy the reality of Dornoch was no illusion but a great disappointment interspersed with real mosquito bites!

It was just yesterday morning that Betty was telling me about a documentary she saw about the photos that we see on the Internet versus how the subjects really look. We got a taste of this after going to Dornoch and I am especially sorry for Tara, Stefan, Penny and family who never got to swim at all or even ride. But I am sure they had a wonderful weekend nevertheless. I surely did.

On Saturday night I decided to sleep up by Betty and Charles, since the MTR Fun and Thrills people had decided to do a ride to Trelawny starting on Sunday morning at 4am and I did not feel like getting out of my bed so early and riding up to meet anyone. Besides I had long decided not to start any more rides from the Headquarters since I am allergic to getting up early to start rides at the appointed time only to end up waiting hours on end for those who do not respect other's time or simply lack discipline. So I have been, for almost a year now, riding out with Charles who does things my way. This two day ride was slated to have ended on Monday morning (after a night's rest) at Dornoch  in the Cockpit country where the Rio Bueno has its source, for the pictures which we had seen, had made it look like the Garden of Eden.

Charles and I set out promptly at 4 am with Kenesha as a support driver and after a brief servic stop at the gas station on Constant Spring road, we were joined by Chuck. From the beginning, the three of us had decided that there was no way on earth we were going to spend hours on end on a bicycle, but instead we would ride to Juici Beef at Clarendon Park, then leave the MTR's and drive over to the beach in Trelawny.

Well by the time I got to Sandy Bay and was about to cross on to the main highway, I felt the sun pelting down into my back and who did I see drive up beside me but Stewart, music and  air condition running and feeling no pain. He looked so happy that I immediately decided that I had had enough of the ride (3 1/2 hours in the saddle) and also wanted to share the good life, so I beckoned him to stop, packed up my bike and we drove off happily to Juici Beef where I had the most delicious porridge I have ever had anywhere, Peacorn porridge, made from peanuts and hominy corn.

When the MTR's arrived, I heard that there had been one mishap as super rider Howie had slipped and fallen while crossing the train line in Old Harbour.  He got a cut on his knee but happily there were no other mishaps for the entire weekend.

Beautiful, calm Burr Head Beach

Charles, Kenesha and I left the main group at Juici  (Chuck drove back to Kingston) and drove straight to Retreat Guest House in Trelawny where we heard about this absolutely wonderful beach, Burr Head beach. In my book, this beach is only to be outdone by Negril.  It is a public, white sands beach right beside Beaches hotel and it is so clean and shallow that I swear that if you wade out for half mile, the water is still at your waist. This is going to be my beach of first choice, from now on, in Trelawny. Betty later joined us there as she had driven down my car but came via the north coast whereas we had  taken a new and challenging route, going into central Jamaica then heading north from Porus, up Shooters Hill then to Trelawny via Albert Town, Clark's Town, Duncan's then on to Falmouth.

Whereas we used the beach for free, Betty had to pay $300 as it had been rented for a private stage show and after noon they had closed the gate.

After a wonderful swim we went to Bodmint where we found that Caroline and Charles Simpson had also defected from the ride and had driven straight over after riding to Porus.  Later, we went over to the bar next  door  to make arrangements for dinner. It was there Carolyn and  found two Jamericans  and played dominoes with them.

When we went back over there to wait for dinner, one was still there and he played with Carolyn while I played with Charles Simpson. That's when the 6 love drop! 

While we played some more,  the main group of tired riders arrived . (about 7.30 pm)  It was then that I learnt that the only person s who rode the entire journey were Alrick, Orelle, Maurice, Howie and Michael. Everyone else had to be driven over Shooters Hill and Sanford and Fatman never got back on their bikes. Disgraceful, considering that the stalwart women like Nicky and Sparkles did! (I wonder who dares to say "Look who's taking" . I aint no masochist! lol)

Anyway, when Fatman came he joined Carolyn, one of the six loveites and threatened to give it back to us.  Thank god we were called for dinner just when we were at the dangerous got 4 love point!

The dinner was quite good and I dare say the curry goat was probably the best I have had in years.

Next morning I discovered that Penny, Stefan  and family had arrived in the night as they wanted to ride to Dornoch  next day. The breakfast at Retreat guest house was excellent and before we could finish, Charles was calling desperately for Kenesha to pick them up at Burr Head Beach for while they had walked over from Bodmint from 6.30 am, they did not feel like walking back. I could have kicked myself for not thinking of driving to the beach when I woke up for I had been up from 7am but just never thought of it.

The lazy men who refused to walk from the beach back to Bodmint!

After breakfast Kenesha and I drove down and found the bunch of lazy men who we piled into the back of the pickup and took them back to Bodmint. We then walked with them to Aunt Gloria's where they voraciously gobbled up the breakfast but  poor Howie, chief masochist could not even sit down at breakfast, as he was still sore from the 15 hour ride.

As we got back to Bodmint, Chris (Dalrimple) joined us, having driven over from her home in St. Ann's bay. While we hung around, we heard brakes screeching outside and a faint thud, only to discover that a taxi  had run into the back of Donavan's  vehicle as he was turning into Bodmint. Although his vehicle's bumper was damaged, it was admirable to see him working assiduously to help the taximan pull away metal from his fan so he could drive his car to a mechanic. I wish I could be as charitable to people who rear end me. I promise to try.

Well sanity finally prevailed and it was decided that we would all drive the 19 miles to Dornoch instead of riding. We took the winding road  via Clark's Town to Stewart Town where we then took an unpaved, potholed access road into Dornoch. When we got there we parked at the top and hiked for about fifteen minutes down to the river head . Disappointment, for the beautiful clean river that we had seen in the pictures was no where to be found but instead only a mud hole and millions of mosquitoes. Luckily I had a towel to ward them off so only got bitten about a dozen times!

Disappointed I returned to my car with Johan and Kenesha and we decided to go back to Stewart Town to find a bar to get some cool beer. We did but then got a call from Charles saying that he had discovered that if you continue on the road to Dornoch, you could end up in Discovery Bay in 10 minutes.  I could not bother to go back on to the bad road so instead proceeded on to Kingston via Brown's Town. I was sorry to have to separate from what was a really nice group of fun loving people, but c'est la vie for after all, it had been a wonderful weekend of riding, swimming, eating, dominoes and camaraderie so there was no reason for me to be greedy.

 Another weekend well spent despite the disappointment of the Rio Bueno river, but I imagine that the mud and mosquitoes were a natural result of the islandwide rains which had pelted us all on the Saturday before .


No regrets about anything.