Norman Grindley, Staff Photographer
Couples relax at the Kingston waterfront.Leonardo Blair, Staff Reporter
THE WIND is warm, there is a slight mist over the harbour and the coin is falling.
It glitters, reflecting the light of the sun before cutting through the rippling surface of the water with a clip.
Sploosh, sploosh, sploosh. The foaming water settles like bleached blotches on a forest green cloth. The horn of an oil ship lazing on the liquid silvery surface a few metres out yawns, sounding like a traditional Chinese gong.
One. Two. Three. Limber-bodied boys flash like hungry wolves after the disappearing coin. The froth dissipates and the boys disappear.
The scrawniest of the young divers emerges seconds later and with a broad grin, blurts out: "Find it!" A dripping hand is raised triumphantly with his $20 booty.
The losers street boys and boys from crumbling neighbourhoods in the vicinity of the Kingston Harbour -- watch with disappointment. They beg the small audience which had gathered to throw more coins.
"Sorry, that was the last one," says the coin thrower. The show is over.
Further along the strip of meandering land on Ocean Boulevard, a few men are busy spinning their philosophy of life. Other admirers of the Kingston waterfront are scattered along the sea wall, engaged in quiet reverie.
A dreadlocked couple huddling on a grassy mound shares the contents of a small book. They whisper then read. Another woman, part of a couple, sends out a short guttural laugh then retires into the arms of her companion. They both look out at the sea.
Then there are the ones who are solo -- maybe trying to get away from the hustle of downtown, maybe seeking solace in the blue/green tranquillity of the sea, maybe carried away by dreams of far off lands as they gaze across the table of glistening water to the Norman Manley International Airport.
Altogether they're fused into the picture of the harbour.
THE SHIPS USED TO COME SAILING IN,
BUT NOBODY COMES ANYMORE
The seventh largest natural harbour in the world, time was when the Kingston waterfront sang with the movement of tourists disgorged from the bowels of huge cruise ships and the waves were swollen with the promise of a better tomorrow.
But on this afternoon, in the dying days of the first year of the 21st century, the water slaps against the concrete wall oblivious to the old hotel, apartment and restaurant buildings, some with peeling paint, that haunt the skies. It goes on murmuring, caring little about the throng of workers crossing the lower end of King Street and Ocean Boulevard.
Bridgette Scott is sitting a short distance from the broken down restaurant building where the water is gently kissing the concrete. It's now a den for car washers, a few fishermen and the odd madman and other street people.
She is startled by the company and stares suspiciously as though her peace were about to be taken away. She softens the moment she's assured of my admiration of the waterfront.
"Oh God," says the plump woman as her voice is carried by the sea wind, "I coming here since I was a girl. Mi father use to carry us as kids to the Christmas market, me my brothers and sisters. Mi use to enjoy it.
"You see all when you look here so," adds the 36-year-old woman pointing to the almost empty harbour, "all four, five big ship. Some pretty white ship. Ship with books, the hospital ship. It stop right here but me don't see none again. Nutten going fi the sea again."
Ms. Scott's animated face shows she has gone back to a time I can only imagine. "We use to have boat racing, everything." she notes, googly-eyed. "A whole heap a tourist use to come here so but nobody much don't come again. From Gilbert mash up the place it just gone so, somebody need to fix up the place, yes, down here want fix up," she laments.
"Right now the wall (of the concrete waterfront) blow off from Gilbert and the place no look too good. Most a the building them empty now. The restaurant (at the waterfront) used to run, now nobody taking care of it.
"Mi like it down here. Is Mountain View mi live but mi like it down here," she says as her eyes follows an Air Jamaica flight departing the airport. "Mi like travel but mi never travel yet ... but ah come here and see the plane sometime. Not even the airport mi never go yet. As a god," she swears with a childlike innocence.
William Bailey is strong and 70 years old. He has lived in Kingston all his life and the waterfront is one of his favourite places. "I'd like to see the waterfront come back to what it used to be. When we had tourist coming in and we had people doing business," he says.
With his tam perched neatly over thick locks, the wiry man whose beard is going all grey still reveres this strip by the sea, recalling that it has been the port of entry for British Royalty. "Anytime the British came to Jamaica is right here they come, even now," he says.
"Last year festival we had the boat race and out here full a people. We can get the place back to what it was."
The terrible treatment of the harbour, he says, has lead to boundless pollution and the killing of the fish. "Here (the waterfront) is mother of the young fish, you call it the fish pond. They breed and then go out to the bigger part of the sea. It get shallow now. Whole heap a things underneath it from Gilbert time, rubbish and iron and all those kinda things. It need to dredge," notes Mr. Bailey.
Schools of silver fish are gliding through the water below and then whoosh, a not-so-huge stingray flings itself out of the watery depths, flashing its white, tender-looking underbelly for seconds before crashing back into the water.
The sea is not silent. This exciting little show of nature draws attention to the small jellyfish floating around with plastic bags and bottles bobbing on the waves, warming themselves.
"Is a little form of enjoyment, everybody come, you just look at the sea front, you have show down here but it mash up now," says Mr. Bailey.
UPDATE
Plans are under way to conduct dredging works within the Kingston Harbour Channel and Eastern Approach. This is part of a plan by the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ) to transform the Harbour into the leading transhipment port in the region.
The PAJ has proposed that in order to make Kingston viable as a transhipment port for the next 20 years, the access ways to the port would have to be wide and deep enough to accommodate today's modern container vessels exceeding 300 metres in length, 40 metres in beam width and 12 metres in draught.
