Hellshire Beach

The summer of 2020 was a beach year for me. Early in the summer I made it my goal to go to the beach every week and I am happy to say, I did. It was a welcome distraction. I looked forward to the time and space, fortunate to have access to such a simple pleasure during a time of great change for us all. I must admit I don’t often make it to the beach, maybe once or twice a year, but no more than a handful. This is unfortunate because the beach is less than two miles away from my home. I’ve lived my entire life on an island or coastal city — I have no excuse. The experience reminds me of another time, when my family and I lived in close proximity to a neighboring beach that I have now come to terms with, we took for granted; Hellshire Beach. Today it is not what it once was and it will never be the same and that is not only our loss, but also a tremendous loss for Jamaica and all the memories Hellshire beach holds. 

Hellshire was a place for us, close to home, full of life, great food (home of the Jamaican festival) and one of the most beautiful beaches you’d ever seen. Mounds of white sand dunes that gave you a workout to the shore. Before I ever saw snow, I would pretend to ski down the slopes and at times, with friends, sled in tube sleighs between the shore and where we were parked on the sand. Today, all that is left is the parking lot as the shore has been eaten away by the sea and the sand used to mitigate its changes. They say it’s climate change. I say it is mismanagement and lack of care. Hellshire simply wasn’t a Jamaican tourism priority. 

I find it ironic how today we often find ourselves fighting with the amount of time we spend on our phones, taking pictures and recording the experience instead of living it, but I must say, I wish we had such access back then to preserve the image that once was. I just thought it would always be there when I needed it. Now it is gone. I haven’t visited Hellshire in over a decade because selfishly, I want it to remain as I remembered — nostalgia works best with distance.

As much as it was a place of adventure and refuge, Hellshire was also a place of fear and, although I didn’t have the word for it then, anxiety. We didn’t know how to swim and thus, the fear of drowning took precedence over pleasure. Then there was the ritual of being “baptized,” in the ocean, emulating our elders in the church. One would be dragged waist to shoulder deep into the ocean and dipped backwards, all the while crying for it to be over. It was meant to be fun or funny, but it was traumatic and still is. We didn’t know any better. Needless to say the experience didn’t create a community of olympic swimmers. There is a lot we didn’t know and that I can accept, but today what is it we’re choosing not to know? What else are we willing to lose? 

I’ll accept the mismanagement of Hellshire beach as “we didn’t know better.” In turn, we must accept and commit to investing in us, especially the places and things the tourists will not see. I’m grateful for the beach that kept my 2020 sane, but it was no Hellshire. It’s funny to witness how much private beaches on the island imitate what once came so naturally.