30 March 2011

We should have not been here already… Our visas in passports have finished and in immigration office we were not given any extension - we were told to leave the island! I was shocked a little, as we were sure there wouldn’t be any problems… We can come back to Jamaica but first we have to get a stamp from a different country in our passports. I reminded myself the situation from Curaçao, where because of the same reasons – we used to make one day trips by plane to Aruba for a stamp, coffee & back. Quick but not cheap. Well, we do not want to say farewell to Jamaica, nor to spend a lot for flying tickets, so we’ll sail wherever and make everything to come back here to finish what we’ve started.

At the moment we are in Greater Antilles so we have 2 possible destinations – Cuba and Hispaniola – the biggest islands in the Caribbean Sea. The best would be to get to Ile a Vache – an idyllic island near Haiti, but the epidemic of cholera is still there so we would need a special expensive vaccination…

So that must be Cuba!!!! Well… We were not so happy to discover the costs of entering the island as well as anchor fees etc. Everything what is to for tourists costs 24-25 times more then for local people…

What’s more, in the same moment we faced our engine problems… Luckily the leak in exhaust and the issue with temperature gauge were quickly resolved with the help of friends and Mikolaj’s great mechanical skills. But… meantime the weather changed, so again Captain had to appear in front of Jamaican officials to hear that nobody would kick us out in such rough conditions! So we are ready to leave any time, looking forward to the wind shift…