Floyd’s Pelican Bar

Salt Spring Junction, Jamaica

Bypass the roadside watering holes and take a boat ride to Floyd’s Pelican Bar, instead. This thatched hut stands on stilts out in the water, making it a dreamy spot for an afternoon of swimming and shooting the breeze, solo or with friends. It’s 30 minutes from Treasure Beach (arrange a boat ride through your guesthouse or resort), and you can arrive for lunch and stay until after sundown for the just-caught fish, rum, and chilled Red Stripe on the menu. Inside the tiny shack, the flags of various countries hang and previous customers have left messages scrawled on planks and benches. Sit outside and watch the pelicans flying in formation across the horizon.

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Catch a Boat Ride to Happy Hour

Bypass the roadside watering holes and take a boat ride to Floyd’s Pelican Bar, instead. This thatched hut stands on stilts out in the water, making it a dreamy spot for an afternoon of swimming and shooting the breeze, solo or with friends. It’s 30 minutes from Treasure Beach (arrange a boat ride through your guesthouse or resort), and you can arrive for lunch and stay until after sundown for the just-caught fish, rum, and chilled Red Stripe on the menu. Inside the tiny shack, the flags of various countries hang and previous customers have left messages scrawled on planks and benches. Sit outside and watch the pelicans flying in formation across the horizon.

The Pelican Bar: A True Wet Bar

Jamaica is redefining the ‘wet bar’ with The Pelican Bar, located just off of Treasure Beach in the southwest. The rustic wooden bar is built on a sand bank about a quarter mile out in the Caribbean Sea. We chartered a fishing boat from the wonderful Jakes Guesthouse for a 20-minute sunset trip to The Pelican. The owner, Floyd, mixed us rum and Ting, a grapefruit soda and sold us Red Stripe beer, which we drank while dangling our feet off the dock. Unfortunately we didn’t see any dolphins or pelicans on our trip. We met a Canadian/Jamaican resident who told us the Pelican Bar was completely destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The owner of Jake’s Guesthouse donated wood while other neighbors helped rebuild the watering hole.

Wet Bar

What is the most effort you made to have a drink? I needed to hire a boat to get me out to Floyd’s Pelican Bar. The good folks at Jake’s Guest House arranged to have a fisherman take me from Frenchman’s Bay on the 30-minute trip out to the bar that rests on stilts a quarter mile out in the Caribbean Sea. You can also get here from Black River. You can arrange to have a meal of lobster and/or fish caught in the water around the bar, though I just came for a few Red Stripe beers. You can hang out all day swimming, fishing, sunbathing and/or drinking Red Stripe or “Rum & Ting (grapefruit soda).” I was told you can often see dolphin and pelicans from the bar but I was not so fortunate. The structure is made completely from driftwood and if you bring a knife out, you can carve your name in the planks. I meet a bunch of cool people out there and watched a beautiful sunset before my return trip.

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