Visiting Margaritaville

A Jimmy Buffet Playground. RIP Jimmy.

Sailing on a boat to Margaritaville is a good place to start this post. The Song Margaritaville of course features on the Spotify Top #500 Songs that go with this Substack.

While I wasn’t a big fan of Jimmy Buffet, it was a real buzz to arrive at Margaritaville in Montego Bay on a catamaran with my daughter and other tourists several years ago. I didn’t know any of the history of his franchise chain, but it was very cool to approach this playground for big kids from the water.

I didn’t even realize we were going there. We had set out to do some reef snorkeling, which we duly did. The water was nice and warm and the many colored fish were bountiful in the deep crevices between the reef crests.

Being a nice day, there were other boatloads of partygoers and holidaymakers out on the water that day. Some were just out there to party, but for me, the fish were the highlight.

The day was a bit soured for me because while I was in the water swimming, I had left my favorite Ferrari branded watch amongst my clothes and wallet on the boat. The only people on the boat while we were swimming were the crew, which I raised with Moses, the skipper. Of course, nobody would own up to it. I quietly hoped someone thought they were going to get rich quick and planned to take it to a pawn shop in Kingston because while it looked flashy, I had only paid $10 for it at a market in Bali.

Surprisingly my cash and credit cards were still there, perhaps they had a philosophy that something like a watch could be accidentally misplaced by a passenger, whereas that was not so likely with a wallet. I wasn’t impressed with not being able to trust the crew, and even less with the skipper of the boat who made it pretty clear that he didn’t give a damn. I guess he figured I was rich and fair game. He even had the audacity to taunt me when we left the boat and at the end of what was otherwise a great day, because I chose not to tip him and the crew. I told him they should consider my missing watch as their tip, even though I hadn’t donated it willingly.

Anyway, the snorkeling was great, lunch was OK, and then we sailed into Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, which was like something I had never seen before. It seemed almost like something from a steampunk story.

I suspect that Margaritaville looked more ordinary from the road, but from the water, it looked, well see for yourself. It’s an interesting mix of things that would be frowned upon where I come from i.e. getting drunk and then swimming in the sea. Fifty-five different mixes of margaritas and other alcoholic beverages, bar food, loud music in multiple bars, and once you had a skinful, there was a waterslide and other water toys to play on. It was like a big frat party.

My daughter had a great time doing acrobatics on the floating tramps in the water, a good unwind for her, after having competed in the World Cheerleading Champs in Orlando the week prior.

Call me old fashioned, or maybe just, been there, done that, but for me, copious quantities of alcohol and the sea are not a great mix, but I certainly had to have a drink at Margaritaville, before we set off again.

I did feel like I got a bit of a taste of the imagination and lifestyle that Jimmy Buffet created in his clubs. While it was in Jamaica, it really felt like the sort of summer vacation place I could imagine American college students going to in the summer. It is very different from the Pacific islands near my home, where people are a lot more reserved.

Buffet was known as a songwriter having dropped out of university in Miami where he was studying journalism. He described himself as a ‘traveling troubadour’ with songs celebrating the simple things in life like drinking, fishing, and sailing. Margaritaville in Montego Bay seems to epitomize his focus on these things and living life to the fullest.

He founded the Margaritaville restaurant chain in 1985, and it has since expanded to over 200 locations around the world! He wrote several books including a best-seller called "Tales from Margaritaville". I’m going through a bit of a binge at the moment reading biographies and will add it to my list so that I can learn a bit more about him, even if many of the stories are fictional.