Content warning: this article references death by drowning.

As a young child, I often spent the six-week summer holidays in Jamaica, staying with extended family and marvelling at the simplest of joys; the sweetness of the mangoes, watching chestnut coloured cows graze the land and playing in the sea. 

Nearly 20 years passed before I would set foot back on the island that used to turn my hair a deep shade of red and that all four of my grandparents called home. I headed straight to the parish of Manchester where I had friends and where my grandparents had in more recent years built a home to travel back to.

I expressed my desire to my friends to visit a familiar spot that my grandfather took me to in my younger years – Alligator Pond, and so one Sunday afternoon, off we went. A familiar smell of fried fish and festivals captured my nose and taste buds and I enjoyed the laughter of my company and the music blasting from the little hut where all the frying was taking place. Adults and children were paddling in the pond area but the sea was rough so no one had any desire to go in except one man.