Mel Cooke, Freelance Writer
MY HACKLES went up when I read the blurb on the rear cover of Don Noel's Near a Far Sea: A Jamaican Odyssey. There was that damned 'd' word, along with a picture of a smiling white man, a combination which always sends my blood pressure soaring.
The 'd' word is 'discovery', as it reads "in 1966, he and his wife discovered, on the island's South Coast, an unspoiled, out-of-the-way village". Here we go, Christopher Goddamned Colombus all over again, I thought.
BAD PICTURE
So I started the 224-page tale, fronted by a bad picture of a tennis court beside a swimming pool, a strip of beach and naturally the sea, with a decidedly jaundiced view - and was disarmed.
Near A Far Sea chronicles the near 40-year real life romance between Don Noel and his wife Brad (to whom the book is dedicated; definitely not a Jamaican, 'cause no yard man would ever call his wife 'Brad') with Treasure Beach, St. Elizabeth. The 'far sea' is the Pedro Cays, which fishermen visit; the 'near' is first the Treasure Beach Hotel where the couple stayed on their first visit and later Hikaru, their visitor's lodging, vacation home and presumably source of the substandard cover photo.
Along the way from 1966 to 2004's Hurricane Ivan, Noel, a journalist who can actually write well in addition to his eye for detail, covers developments as varied as Michael Manley's 1970s years as Prime Minister, rising violence, bauxite industry and declining dollar, but the pivotal point is always Treasure Beach and its transformation from a fishing village to a combination of 'far sea' voyagers and visitors, which is concurrent with the transformation of scrub land into Hikaru.
You have to admire a couple who take public transportation from Montego Bay to Treasure Beach on their first trip to Jamaica. There is humour straight off, as Noel hits lesson number three on his crash course in Jamaica life: "A prayer before embarking on Jamaican roads is well advised." Forty years later, make that a prayer after arriving safely as well.
His sheer writing ability is soon put to use in describing Jamaica: "If you could squeeze Connecticut between your hands to make it longer and skinnier you'd have Jamaica? In squeezing, you'd have made a spine down the middle - 7,400 feet at Blue Mountain in the east?"
How's that for a reverse of the standard spiced bun and cheese schoolboy flattening?
Seeing that it is a personal story, the writing in Near A Far Sea is not always wonderfully written (although mini gems such as "Jamaicans who want to leave me out of a conversation can slip into deep patois, like flooring the gas pedal, to leave me in the dust" keep popping up). Neither is it always in a direction that keeps me interested, as extensive treatment is given to the building of Hikaru and descriptions of the market in Montego Bay and the fruit there-in - good fare for someone not from the tropics to bite into, but ordinary stuff for us 'yardies'.
MARKET SCENE
It is in the market scene that Noel makes a rare misstep, as he speaks of 'caliloo'. He errs gravely in terming the PNP the JNP (Jamaica National Party).
We are introduced to people like Mister Arthur and Miss Olive and I feel like a traveller sighting a familiar face when he mentions names I know like Merrick Gayle, Mel Brown and Jason Henzell. For the life of me, though, I can't place Hikaru, although I do know Irie Rest which he mentions as being close by.
Near a Far Sea: A Jamaican Odyssey begins with reminiscing on blasting the reef to open the mouth of the bay and ends with Noel and Brad taking a swim. And a summation of the feeling which permeates the book: "We come to get away from chores at home, to relax, to visit with friends, to soak up tropical sunshine - but most of all, perhaps, to nourish our souls in the sea that washes this Jamaican shore.
Still, that damned 'd' word should have been canned.
