It’s a Small Port After All, Mon

Dearest Rachel –

Already, we’re at our next (and next-to-last) stop.  Honestly, while I won’t go so far as to say I’m not impressed – I’m starting on these notes while I’m barely half a ship’s length from the dock, so any assessment I give won’t do Falmouth, let alone Jamaica as a whole, justice – the place we’ve emptied out into doesn’t really seem all that much different from Nassau.  A series of small shops and kiosks, albeit with a much better – and louder (evidently, they know how good they are) – background music. Beyond that, I don’t know what to make of it.

If I were in the market for souvenirs, I wouldn’t know where to begin.  I don’t drink – much – and my friends do even less, so there’s no point to looking at the rum.  Even less so the cigars, curated from everywhere in the northern Caribbean.  And while it’s not offered for sale in the shops (and wouldn’t be allowed aboard the ship, at any rate) THC just ended up giving me a headache, you’ll recall (which, compared to its effects on you, is a supreme irony).  So most of the consumables, with the possible exception of coffee, soap or salt, hold no appeal.  Given that I don’t have the palate to appreciate the nuances of the former, and a decidedly utilitarian approach to the latter two, they would all be wasted on me.

So what about the more lasting merchandise they have on offer?  Honestly, I can’t imagine anything I’d care much for – and that would go double for Daniel – so there really isn’t that much to see or do here.  As it turns out, we can’t even get into Falmouth town, such as it is or might be, as the port is gated off from the community proper.

Even the port authority seems to acknowledge this, as there is a large area for taxi pickup and drop off.  However, given a price of $50 to get to Mantego Bay in the next province over to the west, and the limited amount of time we’ll be in port (everyone’s supposed to be aboard by 3:30, barely four hours from now), I can’t see where this would be worth our while.  Unlike you, I’m not much for the surf…

…which doesn’t mean that the surf doesn’t have something for me.  The morning started off grey and cloudy – almost as if it was threatening to rain – and while it seemed to reconsider, the wind apparently didn’t get the memo.  As we were disembarking, a gust caught me as I was halfway down the gangplank, hitting me with a spray of salt and sea that spattered me from face to femur.  Likewise, the walking trail (which is also entirely fenced in from the community) right along the shoreline was buffeted with similar gusts as we traversed it, meaning that we weren’t necessarily going to stay dry even if the wind could blow us that way.  It’s also somewhat disappointing that the trail peters out after barely a quarter-mile; I’m too used to these long treks in the forest preserve.

Meanwhile, I keep feeling like I need to DO something, as opposed to just laying back and relaxing like he can, so I do what I can to write all this down for you while I’m essentially in the middle of it all.  I honestly wish there was more to tell you about, but I guess we both expected it to be like this.  Jamaica isn’t the sort of place you can wander off unsupervised into, it would seem.

And they apparently feel similarly about us tourists; this series of docks alongside of the walking trail seemed like the perfect place to get some footage and scatter a few of your ashes.  However, there was a guy in uniform on the dock, whose presence suggested that people shouldn’t make themselves comfortable there, but rather take their pictures and move along.

It was a this point that I decided to give the pier a try, only to suddenly find him right behind me again.  “Don’t sit on the docks.” Where on earth had he come from?  How could I have missed his approach?

I gave up and returned to the bench by the platform where Lars had remained, and we just lounged there, in surprising solitude for being only a few hundred meters from a ship full of some six thousand guests that had disgorged themselves onto. You’d think more people would wander over this way and take a shot of the ship, at the very least.

Then again, while Lars finds the solitude quiet and relaxing, I admit I can only take so much of it in one concentrated dose; after all, when it comes to vacations such as this, I tend to prefer the ones stopping at big cities, and having the run of the place. Here, even what town there might be beyond the gates is literally fenced off from us, which we take as a warning about it all. Even at the end of the trail, we see a clutter of trash on the other side; it’s not particularly obnoxious in its existence, but it’s a reminder that all is not as pretty on the other side. It would seem that Jamaica (or Falmouth, at least) would prefer to present a Disneyfied face to its visitors, even if this means restricting them to a very “small world.”

Despite insisting that he’s done all the souvenir shopping he expects to (and to his credit, he restrained himself from spending anything), Lars pops into a few shops on the way back. Since I have less to shop for than he does – and I can’t deal with clerk after clerk asking me if they can interest me in any of their wares (I’d forgotten that about the tourist experience from when we were together – as a solo tourist, I’m either shopping where I actually want something, or the clerks leave me alone. Sometimes both, which is slightly annoying when I can’t find what I want and need assistance) – I position myself outside the store to wait for him.

Part of me wishes I had more to tell you about, honey, but that was all we saw. It’s a small port, after all. 

Anyway, we’re off to Labadee, one of those places you visited before… well, not before meeting me, but before being “us.” I’ll probably say more about that later. Until then, though, keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I’m sure I’m still going to need it.