<Return to Main>

Port Antonio , June 20, 2006

Patrice Wymore Flynn (right) widow of Errol Flynn, joins Rosalie Donaldson, Senior VP, International Marketing, and William Tatham, Vice President, Cruise and Marina Operations, Port Authority of Jamaica at the Errol Flynn Marina.

Errol Flynn's love affair with Port Antonio began in the 1940s while he was on a sailing trip destined for the Galapagos. Back then, a storm blew his boat the Zaca off course to Jamaica and soon he discovered the island's northeast treasure. Port Antonio became Flynn's home for many years and as he wrote in his memoir, "After thirty-seven years of wandering I had found my Grecian isle."

Now, the Marina at Port Antonio has been renamed the Errol Flynn Marina, in tribute to the town's most famous resident. "It's amazing that even today Flynn's presence remains an undercurrent in Port Antonio," said William Tatham, Vice President of Cruise and Marina Operations. "The renaming of the Marina is merely an affirmation of what residents and visitors have known for a long time, and that his mystique is still very much a part of the fabric of this part of Jamaica."

After his initial visit to the island, Flynn would return to Port Antonio and his 2000-acre Errol Flynn Estate on hiatus between films. While here he would go rafting on the Rio Grande, on shopping trips to the Port Antonio marketplace, picnicking at the nearby Navy Island, and swimming at Boston Beach. For a time he was the proprietor of the Titchfield Hotel, then Port Antonio's grandest hotel. Flynn's mother and father would also join him in Jamaica.

"This endearing tribute to Errol is perfect in so many ways; he loved the sea, and he adored Port Antonio, so this is a wonderful union of his passions" said Flynn's widow Patrice Wymore Flynn, who continues to live at the Estate.

The Errol Flynn Marina is a 32-slip yacht complex that accommodates vessels up to 350 LOA with a maximum depth of 17 feet. It also boasts single and three-phase power and shore storage and is an official Port of Entry with 24-hour Customs and Immigration. Boat repairs and maintenance are available at the full-service boat yard, which features a 100-ton boatlift, the only one of its kind in the Western Caribbean.

Port Antonio provides the ideal point from which to explore a variety of ports-of-call around Jamaica. It's the closest point in the Caribbean to Cuba with Santiago just 90 miles to the north and it is the northern crossroads for vessels sailing through the Bahamas, down the Windward Passage and en route to Las Jardines de la Reina, the Yucatan, Cayman Islands and the Gulf of Mexico.