We were on a boat back to the ship from one of our excursions this week, and they were blaring music to keep everyone entertained (I think I have a short video of people doing “Baby Shark” and the adults seemed more into it.)

Then, they played “Kokomo.” It’s a song you really want to hate because it’s such an earworm, but it’s the Beach Boys. In fact, I think it’s their last #1 hit. So, from a songwriting standpoint, it’s wildly successful.

However, from a navigation standpoint, and yes, I am a navigation nerd, every time I hear the chorus with all the ports, I think about how implausible a cruise it would actually be – and I’ve actually been to most of the ports. So, I thought I should map it. Given the amount of posts you can find about the song, I may not be the first one to do so, but I’m the first one on this site.

This was just going to be the map, but as I tried to find the lyrics to make sure I had the islands correct, the story of the song started coming out, and it’s just .. interesting, to say the least. A Beach Boys song without Brian Wilson, written by two other California songwriters of great renown, punched up by Mike Love, and recorded for a Tom Cruise movie that I remember seeing – and I had no recollection the song was in the movie.

The mileage noted in the map is approximate, in nautical miles, from the previous port and onto the next port. I had to substitute a couple of ports since the Sea-Distance site didn’t have all the ports (strange!) but it’s probably because a couple aren’t actually cargo or cruise ports, so I just used something close (Key West is less than 100 miles from Key Largo, I used Falmouth for both calls in Jamaica because it didn’t have Montego Bay.)

I would have just asked Alexa but she tends to return distances “as the crow flies” and you can’t just sail across Florida (easily.)

Here’s our itinerary quoted from Google’ version of the lyrics:

Aruba, Jamaica, oh I want to take you to
Bermuda, Bahama, come on pretty mama
Key Largo, Montego, baby why don’t we go

Songwriters: Michael Edward Love / Terry Melcher / Scott Mckenzie / John Phillips
Lyrics Copyright (c) Walt Disney Company

Those are some heavy hitters in the song writing department. Mike Love is a co-founder of the Beach Boys, Terry Melcher produced all sorts of California bands, Scott McKenzie gave us “San Francisco” (wear some flowers in your hair!) and John Phillips founded (and was principal songwriter for) the Mamas & the Papas. John Phillips wrote the original version with Scott McKenzie, it’s on Apple Music here (I had never heard it.) Mike Love added the chorus, so the map is his fault. I’m pretty sure he did not consult a nautical chart when mapping the chorus – or he did, and he really likes sea days. However, it’s what makes the song stick in your head until you have to play something else to get it out.

Six fairly random ports in the Caribbean and Atlantic, and apparently this is a repositioning cruise, since we won’t return to the original port. We do call on Jamaica twice, though. The one place you can’t go is Kokomo itself, since it’s a fictional place.

This is over nine days of sailing – just the sailing – at eighteen knots. It’s a nice cruise, just wandering around a lot.