Bull Bay is an area located on the southeast coast of

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...

, to the east of Kingston on the border between St Andrew and St Thomas, beside Cow Bay. According to folklore, both bays were so named because cattle once roamed the whole area and were slaughtered to provide food for

buccaneer Buccaneers were a kind of privateers or free sailors particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 168 ...

s and English colonists. Industry in the area includes

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envir ...

ing for

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard or sidewalk chalk, and drywa ...

Floods

As a result of being located in the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

s of five rivers (the Salt Spring River,

Chalky River Chalky or Chalkie may refer to: __NOTOC__ Nickname * Chalkie Davies, Welsh rock photographer * "Chalky", nickname of Charles Clinton Fleek (1947–1969), United States Army sergeant and recipient of the Medal of Honor * Chalkie White (disambigua ...

Bull Park River A bull is an intact (i.e., not castrated) adult male of the species ''Bos taurus'' (cattle). More muscular and aggressive than the females of the same species (i.e., cows), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, includin ...

Spring Gut River Spring(s) may refer to: Common uses * Spring (season), a season of the year * Spring (device), a mechanical device that stores energy * Spring (hydrology), a natural source of water * Spring (mathematics), a geometric surface in the shape of a h ...

and the Cane River), Bull Bay has been the subject of several floods. The land is low-lying, with an approximate maximum

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

of above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardis ...

. The drainage basin is composed of relatively hard and impervious rock structures. The floods in September 2002 followed heavy rainfall that month (), due to

Hurricane Lili Hurricane Lili was the second costliest, deadliest, and strongest hurricane of the 2002 Atlantic hurricane season, only surpassed by Hurricane Isidore, which affected the same areas around a week before Lili. Lili was the twelfth named storm, ...

. One person died. Local residents described the flood as being the most disastrous since

Hurricane Gilbert Hurricane Gilbert was the second most intense tropical cyclone on record in the Atlantic basin in terms of barometric pressure, only behind Hurricane Wilma in 2005. An extremely powerful tropical cyclone that formed during the 1988 Atlantic hurr ...

in September 1988. A contributing factor to the flooding was identified by residents as silt. Some of this comes from local quarries, particularly belonging to Jamaica Gypsum & Quarries Ltd., but local deforestation by residents seeking firewood was also a contributing factor. The dumping of garbage was another factor. The Ten Miles and Eleven Miles areas of Bull Bay are regularly subject to floods. Residents have lost livestock, personal belongings, cars, and houses. They also complained of increased problems with insects and pests, bad roads, and resultant health problems.Bull Bay: A Town Ravaged by Nature
by My Community Our Earth Project accessed 21 June 2008

Local industries

*Jamaica Gypsum & Quarries Ltd. *Walker's Blocks and Quarry

Culture and entertainment

Bull Bay is home to a

Rastafari Rastafari, sometimes called Rastafarianism, is a religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by scholars of religion. There is no central authority in control o ...

community of

Bobo Ashanti The Bobo Ashanti (also variously called Bobo Shanti and Bobo Shanty), also known as the Ethiopian African Black International Congress (EABIC), is a religious group originating in Bull Bay near Kingston, Jamaica. The title of Bobo Ashanti essenti ...

known as Bobo Hill. The area also contains several nightclubs. *Sun Coast Adventure Park – Jamaica's first and largest paintball facility *Bob Marley Beach *Cane River Falls –

Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements ...

's favourite place to wash his dreadlocks

Notable residents

*Billy "Mystic" Wilmot - guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and surfer *Javon "Donkey Man" Francis - Jamaican sprinter. *Jada "Jada Kingdom" Murphy - singer, songwriter

References

{{coord, 17, 57, N, 76, 40, W, display=title, region:JM_type:city_source:GNS-enwiki Populated places in Saint Andrew Parish, Jamaica