Hellshire survives on food - But stakeholders demand urgent action to save popular beach

Each wave that slaps the back doors of Hellshire's famous cookshops steals a little more of Jamaica's most famous beach.

Vendors now count their losses in feet of sand and dollars of sales, while state agencies trade promises and plans.

The Half Moon Bay Fishermen's Co-operative, which holds the lease and day-to-day control of the property, insists it is trying to protect the shoreline.

For Joseph Bailey, who has sold necklaces made from shells on the strip for a decade, the disappearing beach is personal. He gestures to the narrow patch of sand where he now squeezes his stall, hidden behind a row of cookshops.

"One time mi coulda mek $3,000 to $4,000 a day, now mi hardly touch $1,000," he told THE STAR. Bailey estimates he has moved six times as the water swallowed his former spots.

Restaurant operator Orthniel Edwards, who has run Lobster Jelly & Seafood for 30 years, squints at divers far out on the reef.

"This used to be 200 feet of sand," he said, pointing at the water splashing the back of his building.

Other vendors recall even 300 feet, depending on the curve of the shore. "We used to fling stone on the reef. Now you can't even throw quarter way."

Edwards blames the dredging of Kingston Harbour for the erosion.

"Is not just global warming. Man mess it up," he argued. "When dem upgrade the wharf, a company promised to help fishermen because they knew it would affect us."

But the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) disagrees. Anthony McKenzie, director of environmental management and conservation, told THE STAR the erosion is caused by "a multiplicity of factors" including hurricanes, degraded reefs, construction on the sand berms and gradual sea-level rise.

"The fishermen make the point that it is linked to the dredging of the Kingston Harbour," he said, "but we don't see that link. It is quite a distance away." By road, Hellshire is about 20 kilometres from Kingston.

Edwards recalls vendors once tried to build a groyne, a wall to trap sand, but NEPA stopped the work.

"They clamp down on us, but never bring a solution. If we never dump stone in front of these shops, the sea would be out a road already." He added, "We used to play ball and run up and down here. Now it's just memories."

A fisherman nearby remembered when sand crabs swarmed the shore before hurricanes.

"That was how we could tell a system was coming," he said. "Mi just nuh see wah hard inna it fi fix the beach. A years we a beg."

NEPA says consultants have been engaged to work on a project aimed at stemming the erosion on the beach. McKenzie said the possible interventions include creating a breakwater system, the installation of groynes and even nourishment.

Those fixes each buy time but come with limits. A breakwater is a barrier offshore that blunts wave energy. A groyne is a wall built out from the beach to trap drifting sand. Beach nourishment involves trucking or pumping in new sand.

All are costly and temporary. Without reef and mangrove restoration, even nourished beaches can disappear in a season.

McKenzie pointed out that the state of the reef is central to the beach's decline. Healthy reefs act as natural breakwaters, absorbing wave energy before it hits land. But decades of storm damage, overfishing and warming seas have left Hellshire's reef weak.

"The state of the reef is one of the major factors," McKenzie explained. "When the reef is healthy, it works like a natural breakwater, reducing the force of the waves before they reach the shore. But with the damage from hurricanes, combined with overfishing and warmer seas, the reef at Hellshire is not providing that same level of protection," he said.

The numbers underline the urgency. A 2012 coastal engineering study estimated more than US$1.5 million would be needed to stabilise Hellshire, a figure far below what today's works would cost. Satellite imagery suggest the beach has lost more than 100 metres of sand in four decades, with the pace quickening after Hurricanes Ivan (2004) and Dean (2007).

Still, the strip endures because of food.

"People don't come here to swim, they come here for the food," Edwards said proudly. "Not just me, the whole beach. Customers drive to other beaches and still order from us. We find a way to get the food to them."

Bailey wonders if he will have to move a seventh time, and Edwards fears his grandchildren will inherit only memories of the sand.

"We had to protect the livelihood ourselves," Edwards said, glancing at the rocks stacked in front of his shop. "But we can't hold back the sea forever."