The Oceans of Hope crew are currently enjoying a visit to the Caribbean island of Jamaica, an island steeped in history and culture. The first sighting and plotting of the island by foreigners was by the eyes of Christopher Columbus in the year 1494, who indeed was then stranded on Jamaica during a voyage of discovery a few years later. Here began the modern history of an island, which until then was populated only by indigenous Arawak Indians. In 1509 the Spanish laid claim, a rule which lasted until 1655 when the English conquered the island as a strategic outpost of their large empire. English privateers (a kind name for pirates) were permitted to use the island as a base in return for guarding it against the French and Spanish navies. The privateers attacked Spanish ships bringing gold up through the Caribbean from South America, returning to their safe Jamaican havens to share the spoils with a complicit English crown….actions which eventually brought a long and deadly war between these two powerful nations.

The commercialization of this fertile place began with large sugar cane plantations developing, indeed sugar remains a huge export. The plantations needed labor and the island’s became heavily populated with slaves brought from Africa – a dark period for humanity, but one that shaped Jamaica with a rich mix of European, African and local peoples. By the time England granted Jamaica independence in 1962, this mix of cultures and physiques had already created a people of creative and athletic prowess which continues on today.

Reggae music was born here, with Bob Marley a world-famous face for the music and its associated lifestyle, some perhaps dubious to our modern thinking, but a fundamental part of the formative sixties and seventies nonetheless. Generations of supreme Jamaican athletes has culminated in Usain Bolt – currently the fastest man on the planet. He is a global icon, but also a local hero and certainly there is a host of youngsters on the island desperate to emulate him and better his speed.

So, for a small, rather remote island Jamaica has been and continues to be a major crossroad and launch pad of culture and provides a unique, fascinating place for our very own Oceans of Hope pirates to seek sanctuary before heading to Panama and its grand canal.