Montego Bay, Jamaica: Part 3

I am sitting at my gate at Sangster International Airport (What if they changed the first letter to "G"?), waiting for my flight to Orlando, where I will meet Dad and Beth Ann for a week of vacation in Florida.

Thurday evening and yesterday, (Friday, April 5) early in the morning, I did three loads of laundry with the washing machine on the boat, which is very efficient and will run off the inverter if the generator is not on. There is no dryer, and I hardly ever need one, but it would have been nice on this occasion. Since we were leaving the boat for most of the day on Friday, we didn't want to leave the laundry unattended on the life lines on deck, so we strung up clothes line in our cabin for sheets and pillow cases and used the grab bar on the ceiling in the saloon for hangers for shirts and pants. (It smelled like a laundromat when we returned later!)

Living space converted to laundry room

With the laundry sorted out, Peter and I went to the airport and picked up a rental car. I drove at first to get a feel for having the wheel on the opposite side of the car from what I am used to and for driving on the wrong--I mean, left--side of the road. Peter was nervous, but I did fine, and I drove myself back to the airport without any assistance from him this morning.

As soon as we picked up the car, we drove directly south through Montego Bay and up into the hills to visit Rocklands Bird Sanctuary. It is a small place where for more than half a century the birds have been fairly tame, particularly the hummingbirds. Tame may be an understatement; bold may more accurately describe their behavior. Peter noted that his dad, Arthur, would have loved the place; he had many visiting birds at his homes in Nakuru.

First of all, we sat on chairs on the patio with one finger stuck out on one hand, opposite of which we held a small bottle of sugar water with a tiny hole big enough for the slender beaks of the hummingbirds. The birds actually alit on our fingers. It was a thrill to feel their tiny feet gripping and watching them hover at close range.

Peter feeding a male doctor bird

Peter feeding another male doctor bird

We spent two hours at the sanctuary, sitting on the deck and walking around the grounds, observing the birds and attempting to get photos of them while they were still and near to us. We learned that there are 16 indigenous birds in Jamaica and quite a few that are introduced or migratory.

The birds we saw include the Jamaican national bird, the doctor bird, also known as the red-billed streamertail hummingbird (only found on the island); the Jamaican mango hummingbird (Jamaica only); the vervain hummingbird (Jamaica and Hispanolia); the white-chinned thrush (Jamaica and Cayman Islands); the the orangequit (Jamaica only); the bananaquit; the American redstart (known in Jamaica as a butterfly bird); Caribbean doves, large birds with distinctive white marks on their shoulders; smaller velvety grey ground doves (with one actively mating couple); bright-colored Jamaican orioles (Jamaica and San Andres); and the cute yellow-faced grassquit.

Here are some photos of them. I am hoping I correctly identified them. (Actually, the Internet is too slow here at the airport, so I will try to add photos in Orlando.)

Female doctor bird being fed by Sherri

Male yellow-faced grassquits on Sherri's leg

Doctor bird

Bananaquit

Doctor bird

Female yellow-faced grassquit

Female red-billed streamertail hummingbird

Jamaican oriole 

Doctor bird photo-bombing a photo of finches

Finches

After we left Rocklands, we drove through the hills and then back down the coast. We were hungry and there are hole-in-wall shacks advertising themselves as restaurants and bars in small towns and along the road, but I was uncertain of sanitation and whether I could find anything vegetarian. In Sandy Bay, we pulled over at a large outdoor restaurant by the water called Pachie's. At a picnic table under the awning (because it was raining off and on), we enjoyed the vegetable combo (for me) and jerk chicken (for Peter). They were subtly and wonderfully spiced and the meal was much less expensive than what we have encountered elsewhere. Had we only been there on Sunday, we could have feasted on goat!

Pachie's

Menu and cooks at Pachie's

Sunday menu at Pachie's

After lunch, we headed into downtown Montego Bay just to see what it was like. Well, it was . . . interesting. It was teeming with high school students in their various uniforms and hordes of older people on the sidewalks and in the intersections, and traffic was as slow as molasses. While most people are clean and smartly dressed, there are a few skinny men, both young and old, with their pants slipping down from their waists and less than impeccable hygiene, who stop you to give directions or advice or try to sell you something that you do not need. The first one insisted on providing guidance and walked just ahead of our car so that he could not hear us telling him that we didn't need his assistance, and then he begged for money, purportedly for food. There wasn't a second one, because we kept our windows closed up after that and refused to open them or pay attention to men waving and flagging us down. We chose not to park and get out for a stroll. It just didn't look that appealing.

Downtown Montego Bay

Downtown curbside shops in Montego Bay

Back at the yacht club in the late afternoon, we sheltered inside the buiding during a thunderstorm and caught up on Internet stuff before returning to Mantra for dinner.

I had to get cleared off the crew list by Jamaican Immigration officers at the yacht club this morning, and I will have to get added on again in a week, which seems a bit silly, but government bureaucracy works everywhere in the world!