Usually we’re docked by the time we’re waking up but today we awoke to a bit of cloud, and the ship was still underway just off the northern coast of Jamaica. We chugged along the coast line to the port of town of Ocho Rios as we had our breakfast and watched the island go by. We docked at a more industrial pier and surprisingly we are the only ship in port today.
One of the things that Jamaica is best known for is that it is where Ian Fleming created the character of James Bond, and he wrote all 14 of his original 007 books at his home on the north coast of Jamaica called Goldeneye. You may recognize that name from a couple of the movie names. Some of the James Bond movies have been filmed here as well. One of the bits of trivia we learned was that when Fleming was looking for a name for the 007 character he wanted the most non-descriptive Anglo Saxon name he could think of for the character. He was looking at the books in his library and saw the name of the author of a book on the birds of the West Indies, James Bond and that fit the bill.
And then there is Bob Marley, of course, who was born here and is buried in the village where he was born, along with his guitar, a bible, and a ring given to him by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, in a mausoleum 6 feet above ground and facing east. It’s quite the tourist attraction apparently.
There are almost 3 million people living in Jamaica. Kingston, on the south east shore is the capital and home to 1.3 million. The Head of State is King Charles III, as Jamaica is part of the British Commonwealth. The Government consists of elected members of the House of Representatives and the Governor General, appointed by the King, appoints the Prime Minister, traditionally the leader of the political party who are in a majority in the House. They also have a nominated upper house, or Senate.
Hurricane Melissa hit Jamaica on October 28, 2025, just 4 months ago, and was one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record and the strongest to hit Jamaica. They had sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, but mainly to the south east side of the island near Kingston. We were originally scheduled to dock in Kingston, but the change was made after the hurricane to stop in Ocho Rios instead. The hurricane caused 8 billion dollars in damage and the island is still recovering. You can see places where roofs have been blown away, and there are blue tarps over many buildings to stop the leaks. Canada provided over $7 million in humanitarian assistance to Jamaica for emergency food, relief supplies, water and sanitation and hygiene support.
Sugar cane, from which the famous Jamaican rum from 6 distilleries on the island is made is the largest “legal” crop of the island. Jamaican rum is shipped to 66 countries around the world. You can guess what the illegal crop might be.
The Blue Mountain Range Peak, the highest point in Jamaica, is 2,256 meters above sea level (7,402 feet), and much of the island is over 300 meters (1000 ft) high. Coffee is grown at the high altitude and Blue Mountain Coffee is one of the biggest exports. Other exports are bananas, cocoanuts, and Allspice used for making jerk dishes. Allspice is the dried unripe berry of the allspice tree. Our guide picked some leaves of an Allspice tree for us and it smells like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves all wrapped up in one.
They also mine Bauxite and historically Russian companies have had interests in the mining companies and it is exported to Russia. The export numbers in more recent times are not clear, given the sanctions against Russia. It is used in the production of aluminum. Also mined is limestone and silica sand.
It is perhaps an urban myth, but maybe based on some truth that there are more churches per square mile in Jamaica than anywhere in the world. And folk lore also says that there are more rum bars in Jamaica per square mile than anywhere in the world. We did see lots of both on our travels around the island.
Ocho Rios is Spanish for Eight Rivers, although there are now only 4 rivers flowing, there were originally 8. The population in this tourist town is approximately 10,000. This is where we started our “Panoramic Tour” today. Our guide was great, with lots of information, anecdotes and jokes.
We headed up the hillside on a road called Fern Gully which is a scenic, three-mile-long road, built on an old riverbed that winds through a rainforest with a canopy of ferns and tropical trees. We saw quite a lot of evidence of Hurricane Melissa, and the guide mentioned that the roadway was a lot brighter in this area since the hurricane because so many of the trees had been uprooted or their limbs broken.
There are farms in the 1000 ft level of the mountain where the rainforest has been hacked back and the red soil is very fertile. Corn and potatoes are grown as well as other green products for which the island is very well known. Usain Bolt’s father has also attributed Usain’s sprinting success to his diet on the yellow yams grown on the island. Castor trees grow beans from which oil is extracted for medicinal uses and they also have a plant from which they can extract iodine.
We went through several little towns and it was really interesting to see the homes and businesses on the back routes. We even saw a football (soccer in North America) pitch with some goats giving the grass a trim.
Our guide stopped the bus several times to pick leaves or fruit to show us some of the plants that are familiar to us, but we may not know what they look like before they are processed.
We stopped at a restaurant on the side of the mountain overlooking Ocho Rios for a washroom break and to take pictures from their outside patio. It was gorgeous looking down on the harbour where the water was a beautiful shade edged with white beaches and resorts. We could just barely see the 5 masts of our Wind Surf poking up from its dock behind the trees.
We wound through the rough country roads back down to Ocho Rios and made the compulsory stop at a souvenir store, which had coffee and rum to taste test. Since I drink neither I wandered the t-shirt selection. If you’re looking for something in green and yellow (colours of the Jamaican flag) or with Bob Marley on it, this is your place.
We then bussed over to Island Market which was a secure small shopping mall full of souvenir shops and restaurants near the harbour to allow for more opportunities for the local vendors to extract some of our cash from us. They were not successful. I’m not a very good shopper or maybe I am, depending on your point of view.
Back on board the ship we were delayed leaving because the provisioning took longer than anticipated. “Island Time” I suppose. But we weren’t fussed about it as we had no where else to be. Some big black clouds were forming as we left and we could see that the island was getting some rain, but we managed to avoid the storm and move on to what we hope will be a blue sky day at sea tomorrow.
There is an absolutely fabulous violinist on board as part of the onboard entertainment, and we have really enjoyed listening to him in the lounge and the outside aft deck called the Compass Rose. He plays a wide cross section of music genres to recorded background music. Tonight he wandered through the dining room as we had dinner. So lovely. Great way to end another day in paradise.
Lois' Adventures 