Bull Bay is an area located on the southeast 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 ...

, to the east of

Kingston Kingston may refer to: Places * List of places called Kingston, including the six most populated: ** Kingston, Jamaica ** Kingston upon Hull, England ** City of Kingston, Victoria, Australia ** Kingston, Ontario, Canada ** Kingston upon Thames, ...

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 privateer or free sailors, and pirates 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 u ...

s and English colonists. Industry in the area includes

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

ing for

gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, 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, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

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. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...

s of five rivers (the Salt Spring River, Chalky River,

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 proper), bulls have long been an important symbol in many religions, in ...

, Spring Gut River 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 (geography), ''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 equipotenti ...

of above

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

. The

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land in which all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

is composed of relatively hard and impervious rock structures. The floods in September 2002 followed heavy rainfall that month (), due to Hurricane Lili. One person died. Local residents described the flood as being the most disastrous since Hurricane Gilbert 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 is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic religion that developed in Jamaica during the 1930s. It is classified as both a new religious movement and a social movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion. There is no central authori ...

community of Bobo Ashanti 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) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, he fused elements of reggae, ska and rocksteady and was renowned for his distinctive voca ...

's favourite place to wash his dreadlocks

References

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