G’day folks, and YES it’s time for MORE JAMAICA! Actually this will pretty much complete my Jamaican adventures but I’ve saved a good one for last. (actually I am just going through things in order hehe)

Lime Cay is a small island not too far from Kingston, the capital and even closer to Port Royal. It was a place that was accessible and yet out of the city, and it looked beautiful and well worth visiting. Some online were saying there was decent snorkelling in and around it – to be fair I did a little, well swimming with my GoPro, and although some of the rocks were interesting I didn’t see marine life, but then I did it all independently (and saved a lot of money this way) because I couldn’t get on a tour which seem to be occasional I think. Anyway I couldn’t get into one going on the day I was there, and I didn’t see anyone there snorkelling when I was there.

I did it all by public transport, which honestly wasn’t super easy, taking a coaster downtown to the bus station. This bus station is next to Seargeant William Grant Park, on North Avenue. Here I waited for around 90 minutes to get a bus to where I needed to be to catch a boat to Lime Cay. I was on time for my bus, 15 minutes early, I don’t know what happened. I got on one bus after 80 minutes and was going to transfer to an Uber when the bus for Port Royal turned up, I had given up on it figuring it wasn’t running today.

Port Royal is right at the end of the peninsula, this bus also stops at the airport but after this experience I decided to get an Uber to the airport the next day when I was leaving after this experience. No real information, it’s out in the open so shade is hard to find, I was just thankful that it had arrived but it really took a lot of time out of the day.

Boats for Lime Cay leave from the Y Knott Bar on the road to Port Royal just before you get there (I walked to Port Royal afterwards). I just told the driver where I wanted to get off, it took around 50 minutes, which when you add up the waiting time, first bus time would make it nearly 3 hours to the Y Knott Bar. And still there was a boat ride.

And this can take a while too. They are just open boats with a smallish motor that look to take maybe 20 maximum. I didn’t have a 90 minute wait, but it was still another 45 minutes or so – at least it’s a bar a decent place to pass that sort of time! The guy goes back and forth from the island as the need dictates I guess. There is no real timetable. The boat wasn’t full but there were a few of us on it, the journey is around 15 minutes I think, you get a bit of a view of Port Royal too as you round it off to Lime Cay.

It was $3000JMD or just under $20USD for the return boat. I recorded all in all for the four buses I took I spent $600JMD or around $4USD in total. So not an expensive day.

So the boat zoomed me across the water to Lime Cay, and it really is a perfect little tropical island. It’s small, you could walk around it in probably 15 minutes, it has a shady interior, beautiful sand, some parts are rocky and nobody actually lives there. There’s a sort of structure/shack with no walls near where the boats drop people off and people go there with there friends or family and take food and have their lunch at Lime Cay.

There’s some decent swimming to be had, most people swam near the boat drop off though which is probably the safest area and where most people hang so you can be seen. Further up one end is rockier where I tried to use the GoPro underwater and I did, just not with great results. The water though is very warm, and there are people messing about doing things lit jet skiing and parasailing.

I went back to the Y Knott Bar, they will give a time that the boats will be leaving from the island and so I stuck to the one side in case it came early – but the far side of the island was much more rocky and people generally didn’t go there.

Once back at the Y Knott, I walked up the road to Port Royal after missing the bus back to the city by literally 5 seconds. I walked back up the track to the main road and as I hit the road the bus zoomed by! Such is life.

I decided to head to Port Royal, 10 minutes walk I think not much more, because that was the terminal for the bus, outside a little hotel. It’s got a very cool history and was known as the ‘Pirate Capital’ back in the 1600s because of the… pirates. Then in 1692 there was a massive earthquake that relocated much of it to under the water. I hear that it’s brilliant for scuba divers.

I just walked around, it was pretty quiet and down the right street felt deserted, but at the same time there was a part of town with a bar/restaurant that was well-patronised and a few people here or there. I think I saw a party bus parked in a car park – possibly for foreigners, not sure if it was on tour or gets put there when not in use.

The main fort is Fort Charles – but I was there at the end of the day and it was closed. It looked worth visiting I guess, it’s large. There’s a bit of an open area in front of St Peter’s Anglican Church too, that’s also where the bus will end it’s run at the end of the Norman Manley Highway.

Once I had taken a walk, I waited for a bus and surprisingly a coaster (small bus) appeared and zoomed me back to downtown before I knew it. It had only two passengers including myself for most of the way, I guess they dropped a load of people off in Port Royal and knew they wouldn’t have many for the return journey. I was expecting a 90-120 minute wait for the next bus so I was rather happy about that!

Port Royal is rather photogenic so I would have liked to have taken the DSLR for that, but going to an island I kept it simple with a couple of action cameras and my phone. Still, I would definitely recommend visitors taking a longer, better look at Port Royal and thought Lime Cay was delightful. Thanks for reading today! Next in this series of blogs fly across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe! Take care wherever you are in the world – May the Journey Never End!