Guano.

Then off to the southeast Nyum spots some land. Bugger me what’s that? Can’t still be Jamaica surely. Quick check of the chart says it must be Navassa. Just a low rocky looking lump, not much to look at but it has an interesting history. On his 4th. Voyage in 1504 Columbus was on his way back from discovering Panama. His ships were full of worms and leaking badly so he had to beach them in St. Anne’s, Jamaica and send for help. He sent a few blokes off in dugouts to try and reach Hispaniola. They ran out of water and landed on ‘Navaza’ where they found a few birds eggs and iguanas to eat. A few of them died and the rest managed to get to Santo Domingo in their canoes. Nobody visited the island again until the 1600’s when it became popular with pirates.

Then in the 1800’s some enterprising Americans got interested in guano. In 1857 a Mr. Cooper supplied a $50,000 performance bond to President James Buchanan (as required by law) and two years later the President proclaimed that Navassa now "appertained" to the U.S. You can take the word appertain any way you want really. Legally speaking it means "loosely belonging to or temporary ownership." It’s all explained in the Guano Act of 1859(U.S. Code Title 48, Section 1411-1419) which goes something like this:-

"Whenever any American citizen discovers a deposit of guano on any island rock or key and not under the jurisdiction of any other government and not occupied by citizens of any other government,  at the discretion of the President, he can say that the island appertains to America."

The Guano Act goes on to discuss the required filing of an affidavit and bond and discusses issues such as the President sending troops to protect the guano miners should they be threatened by other governments or bad guys.

Many guano islands were bought and sold. Not just the mining rights but actual real estate ownership. Geezer called James Jennett of Baltimore made a nice living discovering guano islands. He’d sell the guano rights as well as the islands themselves. Those were the days. Oscar would have loved the Guano Act.

Anyway that’s enough birdshit. Time to get some of that canvas down. There’s supposed to be a jetty here somewhere but I don’t want to chance it so we drop the main anchor and I tell the crew to get a bit of sleep. The wind’s died down a bit but there’s still a big swell. I don’t entirely trust the anchor myself so I’m up here with the all-weather laptop watching the chain and waiting for the sun to come up. Won’t be getting much sleep but that’s the downside of being captain. As soon as it gets light it’s all hands on deck and we’re off to Haiti.