Discovery Bay is a town in

Saint Ann Parish Saint Ann () is the largest parish in Jamaica. It is situated on the north coast of the island, in the county of Middlesex, roughly halfway between the eastern and western ends of the island. It is often called "the Garden Parish of Jamaica" on ...

on the northern coast of

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

. The city is also known locally as Dry Harbour, and gives its name to the Dry Harbour Mountains in St. Ann. There is a dispute as to whether

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

first landed in Discovery Bay or Sevilla la Nueva (east of Discovery Bay) in 1494. Near to the city are Puerto Seco Beach and several historic sites, such as the Green Grotto Caves and Columbus Park. Visitors to the Green Grotto Caves can see relics of the native

Taíno The Taíno are the Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, Indigenous peoples of the Greater Antilles and surrounding islands. At the time of European contact in the late 15th century, they were the principal inhabitants of most of what is now The ...

Arawak The Arawak are a group of Indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. The term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to different Indigenous groups, from the Lokono of South America to the Taíno (Island Arawaks), w ...

lifestyle there. It is said that many

Spaniards Spaniards, or Spanish people, are a Romance-speaking ethnic group native to the Iberian Peninsula, primarily associated with the modern nation-state of Spain. Genetically and ethnolinguistically, Spaniards belong to the broader Southern a ...

escaped the English invasion of 1655 through secret passages in the caves with the help of Arawaks and

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...

n slaves, in exchange for the slaves' freedom.

Overview

The city of Discovery Bay sits on a bay of the same name. The bay was originally named ''Puerto Seco'' (Dry Harbour) by Christopher Columbus because, unlike the neighboring Rio Bueno bay, there are no permanent rivers flowing into it. However, groundwater does enter the bay through deep cracks in the

basement A basement is any Storey, floor of a building that is not above the grade plane. Especially in residential buildings, it often is used as a utility space for a building, where such items as the Furnace (house heating), furnace, water heating, ...

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

, especially on the geologic fault line that runs through the ship channel and on the western side. The

salinities Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensionless and equal to ...

of the submerged springs are greater than 20 parts per thousand, yet they cause a marked difference in temperature and salinity in the shallow western back reef. BauxiteIndustry20231011 120244~2

Discovery Bay's

economy An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...

is dependent upon

tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure, and the Commerce, commercial activity of providing and supporting such travel. World Tourism Organization, UN Tourism defines tourism more generally, in terms which go "beyond the common perception of tourism as ...

and

bauxite Bauxite () is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)), and diaspore (α-AlO(OH) ...

mining. To the west of the bay is a port from which the St. Ann Bauxite Company, which employs 450 people, exports ore. The St. Ann Bauxite company was formerly named Kaiser Jamaica Bauxite Co. (KJBC), and was jointly owned by

Kaiser Aluminum Kaiser Aluminum Corporation is an American aluminum producer. It is a spinoff from Kaiser Aluminum and Chemicals Corporation, which came to be when common stock was offered in Permanente Metals Corporation and Permanente Metals Corporation's na ...

and the

government of Jamaica Politics in Jamaica takes place in the framework of a representative parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The 1962 Constitution of Jamaica established a parliamentary system whose political and legal traditions closely follow those ...

. It is also the site of the Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory, operated by the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 18 English-speaking countries and territories in t ...

. Founded in 1965, the lab has hosted researchers from around the world focusing on coral reef biology and tropical coastal processes. The majority of the city's 2,700 residents are of African descent. The original Taíno Arawak residents did not survive the Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

External links

Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory (DBML)

References

{{Settlements in Jamaica Populated places in Jamaica Populated coastal places in Jamaica

Overview

See also

External links

References