Dunn's River Falls is a famous

waterfall A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in seve ...

near

Ocho Rios Ocho Rios (Spanish for "Eight Rivers") () is a town in the parish of Saint Ann on the north coast of Jamaica, and is more widely referred to as ''Ochi'' by locals. Beginning as a sleepy fishing village, Ocho Rios has seen explosive growth ...

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 ...

Appearance

At about high and long, the waterfalls are naturally terraced like giant natural stairs. Several small lagoons are interspersed among the vertical sections of the falls. The falls empty into the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

at the western end of a white-sand beach.

Tourism

Climbing the waterfalls is a popular tourist activity and is often, but not exclusively, performed with the help of tour guides from the park. It takes about 1-1.5 hours to climb with short breaks for photographs and video recordings taken by the guides. There are also stairs alongside the falls for those who do not want to get wet or are unable to manage the rocky, uneven terrain of the actual waterfall. The falls are bordered by lush, green vegetation that shades the area from the sun and keeps the area, and climbers, cool. The climb can be relatively hard so is often undertaken as a hand-holding human chain led by a guide to make it easier. In addition to the falls, a park has developed where there is an area for zip-lining, a kids splash pad, and a merchandise area. In 1988 the falls were used as a filming location during the Hollywood movie

Cocktail A cocktail is a mixed drink, usually alcoholic beverage, alcoholic. Most commonly, a cocktail is a combination of one or more liquor, spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as juices, flavored syrups, tonic water, Shrub (drink), shrubs, and ...

History

Dunns River Falls plaque Photo D Ramey Logan

The falls were the location where the Battle of Las Chorreras took place in 1657, when the British defeated a Spanish expeditionary force from Cuba. A plaque placed at the bottom of the falls by the Jamaican Historical Society commemorates the event (see photo).

Geology

Dunn's River, a short stream dropping only from its source to the sea, is fed by spring water rich with

calcium carbonate Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a common substance found in Rock (geology), rocks as the minerals calcite and aragonite, most notably in chalk and limestone, eggshells, gastropod shells, shellfish skel ...

and deposits

travertine Travertine ( ) is a form of terrestrial limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and rusty varieties. It is formed by a process ...

forming a sequence of

tufa Tufa is a variety of limestone formed when carbonate minerals precipitation (chemistry), precipitate out of water in ambient temperature, unheated rivers or lakes. hot spring, Geothermally heated hot springs sometimes produce similar (but less ...

terraces. Such waterfalls are described by geologists as "a living phenomenon" because they are continuously rebuilt by the sediments in spring water. Dunn's River Falls is one of the very few

waterfalls in the world that empties directly into the sea.

Awards

Dunn's River Falls won the Caribbean's Leading Adventure Tourist Attraction in 2023, 2021, and 2020. The Dunn’s River Falls Zip Line (Ocho Rios) also won Best Caribbean Attraction from the Porthole Cruise Magazine's 2020 Editor-in-Chief Awards.

References