If you happen to glance through this blog, you would probably wonder, but what about the sea? This blogger is writing from a Caribbean island, but we never hear about the sea. Is Kingston not on the sea?
That is a very good question. Before coming here, I thought I would be living in a town on the sea, and imagined myself going to the beach and sitting on a seafront terrace every day. It turns out that the seafront of Kingston, which is called Downtown, the old part of Kingston as opposed to New Kingston where I live and work, is heavily ridden by crime and violence. Beside the fact that foreigners are advised not to go there, the seafront has become like a ghost town with numerous deserted buildings and closed shops... It is such a pity because the area is so blessed in terms of its location. If it were not for crime and violence, Downtown would thrive as a commerce and tourism district with many restaurants and bars on the sea.
Still, there is no need to despair. Kingston has more to offer than the deteriorated Downtown area, and if you drive out a bit, you will find a restaurant on the sea that you dreamed of. My favourite such place is Morgan's Harbour (http://www.morgansharbour.com/).
Morgan's Harbour is a hotel, a restaurant and a marina in Port Royal. It is where you take a boat to Lime Cay, a sand reef island that offers my most favourite beach around Kingston. Morgan's Harbour is also where you can enjoy a pleasant and relaxing dinner on the sea, with the sounds of waves and a view of the mountains and twinkling lights of the city of Kingston. It is about a 30-minute-drive from Kingston, and I enjoy the drive. You drive straight ahead on a flat road surrounded by the sea, mountains and green bushes, and it has a calming, meditative effect.
Port Royal, where Morgan's Harbour is located, is on the tip of the Palisadoes, a long sand spit that comes out of Kingston. It is a historical town known for many things. It was the most important commercial port in the Caribbean as well as the main harbour for the pirates of the Caribbean in the 17th century, and it was the place where a big earthquake hit in 1692.If you'd like to get to know more about Port Royal, the following websites may be helpful:
- http://www.jnht.com/heritage_site.php?id=289 (by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust)
- http://www.hmsf.org/exhibits/port-royal/port-royal.htm (by the Historical Museum of Southern Florida)
- http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/pages/history/story001.html (From the Pieces of the Past series of the Gleaner)
Morgan's Harbour is named after Sir Henry Morgan, who supposedly was the model for the main character of Captain Blood, a popular novel published in 1922 about the adventures of Dr Peter Blood, a physician turned pirate. The text of the novel is available from the Project Gutenberg here as well as from Google Books here. The novel was also adapted into a film in 1935, which, amazingly, you can watch on YouTube here.
At the restaurant of Morgan's Harbour, Grilled Snapper is my most favourite on their menu, but it is available only for dinner. Today, I passed by for an afternoon snack, thus there was no grilled snapper available. Instead, I had fish fingers with tartar sauce. It was very good. 485JMD which is a bit less than US$7 (before tax and service charge).
By the way, Jamaican people love fried food, eg. fried chicken, fried fish, fried shrimp... there are very Jamaican fried food items called "bammy" and "festival". Basically, the former is fried cassava and the latter is fried cornmeal.
See http://www.jamaicatravelandculture.com/food_and_drink/bammy.htm for a recipe and picture for bammy, and http://www.jamaicans.com/cooking/appetizers/testcook.shtml for festival.
Another BTW, according to reporters, chicken nuggets were the source of power for Usain Bolt, the sprinter! See the following articles:
- Usain Bolt's Secret to Being the Fastest Man: Chicken Nuggets (from the People magazine)
- Chicken nuggets and yam fuel Bolt's sprint double bid (from ABC News)
- Olympic 100m hero Usain Bolt powered by chicken nuggets and yams (from Mirror.co.uk News)
I am thinking, it's simply that he likes fried food as other Jamaican people do. Probably, bammy would have done the same.
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