The White Witch of Rose Hall

Well, we've been here for four days and each day we call Chris Parker, its blowing stink with high seas down near Isla Provincidales, so its time for a change of plans.
We left Port Antonio on Thursday, Feb 17th, and sailed across ther north coast to Ocho Rios (Eight Rivers). With a reputation for lots of tourists, hustlers and hookers, we just stayed aboard arriving late in the day.
Next morning we continued our westward sail to Discovery Bay where we anchored in the lee of Jamaica's wealthy beach homes. Ashore, we bought some more excellent fruit and a bit of sightseeing. Then a short chat with the coast guard (they spent 45 minutes checking us out when we anchored) and back aboard. Day three saw us rounding the western tip of Jamaica into Montego Bay where we anchored off the very comfortable facilities of the Montego Bay Yacht Club.
In the morning we headed out for Rose Hall, a former sugar plantation with a gruesome history.
Annie Palmer was not what you would call a sweet person, even though she owned a vast sugar plantation in Jamaica.
Born in Haiti, Annie was a petite woman (barely 4 feet tall, it is said) who moved to the beautiful island of Jamaica and found herself the wife of a powerful man who owned Rose Hall and thousands of acres of sugar plantation.
Whatever the cause, Annie was feared by the slaves who lived on and worked the plantation. She ruled with an iron fist, and defiance, or even perceived insolence, was answered with public whippings, torture in the dungeon (located in the cellars of the Great House below Annie's bedroom), or even death. Annie started her day by stepping to the small balcony and issuing the orders of the day to the assembled slaves in the yard. (We stepped out on it when touring... an eerie feeling, given its history) Her orders often included punishments and executions.
Perhaps out of boredom, or sheer wantonness, Annie started taking slaves to her bed. When the Mistress of the House lavished her attentions on a slave, that man's days were numbered. When Annie tired of her lover, she would murder him and have him buried in an unmarked grave. Little is known of her first husband, John Palmer, except to say that she murdered him in his bed as well. Perhaps he caught her in the act, or maybe she just tired of him too.
These were rather lawless times and fraught with the risk of a sudden death due to "fever", and the sudden death of the master of the estate didn't cause any investigation. Regardless, Annie cultivated the image of being a tough and merciless mistress, at least in part to keep her from appearing to be easy prey. These were difficult times to be a woman, particularly a rich widow in a country frequented by pirates and the like. Annie found another way to remain independent and in control... Voodoo.
Many of the slaves were practitioners of the art, and in order to curry favor and live longer, they supported Annie's voodo practices learned during her childhood in Haiti. This was to include human sacrifice, particularly of infants, whose bones she used in practicing the black magic. Soon Annie was known far and wide as "The White Witch of Jamaica". Her reputation for ruthlessness and magic powers served to keep her safe from those who would normally consider her a target. Even so, Annie found time and reason to marry two more husbands, which she eventually dispatched in a similar manner, acquiring their wealth in the process.
Annie's Overseer was a slave known to be quite a powerful Voodoo practitioner, a fact he managed to conceal from Annie, at risk to his own life. The Overseer had a daughter who was engaged to marry Aiine's plantation accountant. Unfortunately, Annie's lustful eye fell upon the young man, and he was soon called upon to pleasure the mistress of the house. The Overseer knew what to expect, and began to make preparations to protect the young man from Annie's "disposable lover" policy.
However, Annie did not follow her usual pattern. Learning of her "lover's" love for a slave girl, she had them both murdered, inflaming the greif-striken Overseer. Annie must die, at all costs.
A special grave was prepared in the woods, within sight of the Great House, using Voodoo ritual and markings. The Overseer then entered the house, confronting the White Witch, and engaged her in magical and physical battle. He succeeded in killing her, sacrificing his own life in the process. Slaves who were privy to the Overseer's plan entombed the body of the White Witch in the specially prepared grave... a grave designed to keep her from rising and walking the plantation again. But they failed to complete the ritual properly, and the White Witch is said to roam the Great House to this day.
So afraid of Annie's supernatural powers were the slaves that in the great slave uprising a few years later, Rose Hall was one of the few plantation houses not burned by the revolting slaves. They so feared Annie's revenge from the grave that they just ran. That's why it survives today (also thanks to a huge support by an American couple who resuced it from falling into ruins.
Enough about Annie...
We headed back into Montego Bay, stopping for lunch at a jerk chicken stand, and back to the Yacht Club. We spent the next few days preparing to head out... not knowing where, but knowing that we needed food and water wherever our destination.
We listened to Chris's forecasts, calling for strong winds and seas of 12'-14' in the southern area and knew that was not in our plan, but unsure where to go. After four days in Montego Bay we were stocked and had seen all we needed of the area.
Time to go, but where. Unsure, we checked out with Customs with a Zarpe for Cayman Islands, and off we went, heading round the corner about 30 miles to Bloody Bay from where we would jump off.
By the way, the painting of Annie is a sort of fake. It is an original of her, but she had no children. They are just a figment of either Annie's or the artists imagination.