Port Royal

The other weekend Andy and I visited Port Royal, a small town which sits at the end of a long peninsula jetting out from Kingston bay.

In the late 1600s Port Royal was the capital of Jamaica, its largest city, and the center of England's "buccaneering" activities in the Caribbean. It's most infamous resident was Captain Henry Morgan (right), who got rich organizing pirate invasions of the Spanish Main and continues to be a mainstay in current pirate pop culture. He also proved a bona-fide role model for his salty contemporaries, leading a highly publicized life of quick-riches, violence, and self-destructive behavior. For all these things he was knighted by King Charles II, and at one point was even appointed Lieutenant Governor of the island. Political corruption indeed has deep roots in Jamaica. Today his rebel-come-big-man story continues to inspire lawless Jamaicans ... he may be the island's only white historical figure with positive street cred.

Buoyed by its theft-based economy, Port Royal was also a thriving commercial hub. Its population and trade rivaled colonial Boston and Philadelphia, and it exceeded both in wealth. But all this success came with a price and by the 1690s Port Royal was a favorite topic of England's dimebook industry, earning the moniker of "wickedest city in the world."

All the fun came to a literal crashing halt in 1692, when a massive earthquake sent two-thirds of the city SINKING INTO THE SEA. Thousands perished before noon and eyewitness accounts talk of the ground literally opening up and swallowing people by the dozens. (See diagram below). Morgan had died a few years prior, and his ostentatious tomb disappeared beneath the waves where it still remains. Jeremiad preachers had a field day, just like today.


Reduced to 30% of it's former land mass, Port Royal could no longer support a thriving market community so people moved across the bay and built Kingston. Today Port Royal is a quiet shadow of it's former self, and again my Jamaican guidebook contained an apt description:

"Port Royal today is a dilapidated, ramshackle place of tropical lassitude, replete with important historical buildings collapsing into dust."

Port Royal once had four forts guarding it from enemy ships. Only one survived the quake: Fort Charles. The building continued to serve as a naval installation until 1945, and is now a Jamaican Heritage site.


During the American Revolution, a younger Horatio Nelson was stationed here as fort commander. Rumor is that he used to pace in this tower all day, looking out for French ships and praying for a fight. But the feared French invasion never happened and Nelson would have to wait for the next war to earn immortal English war hero status.


All historical plaques are instructive to a degree. I like ones that don't beat around the bush in this regard.


In the 1890s, -- about 200 years after the earthquake -- the Brits installed a new navel battery near the fort, complete with a state-of-the-art, 14 ton breech-load gun. Then in 1907 a second earthquake hit the town, sinking the turret 8 feet into the sand. Doh!


It also sank this storage building into its present state, now called the "Giddy House" because of the vertigo you receive upon entering.



















Aside from the fort, there's little to do in this former capital, which is now only a collection of about a thousand isolated fisherpeople.

Typical Street.


Official practice grounds of the Port Royal Football Club. Don't know if they're any good, but they were out practicing earlier that day.


Andy showing off his fortitude in front of the abandoned naval hospital -- another old imperial building, now derelict.


Uneven modernization is typical of third world nations. Here are some fishboats moored for the evening. Many Caribbeans still make a living catching large ocean fish using traditional methods in these tiny boats. In the distance, a world away, are the cargo container cranes of Kingston's enormous international harbor.


More fishing shanties.


Di hot Spot!: "Downtown" Port Royal


The scene at "Gloria's" -- the town's most popular restaurant. Started by one Gloria, who was once a simple fish-cleaner. Today the owner of a thriving fish cafe. On weekends they break out the soundsystem and blast oldies music that can be heard across the harbor.


Barrel-broiled lobster. It's what's for dinner.