‘Everything gone’
Treasure Beach fisherfolk reel from Melissa’s devastation
Published:Saturday | November 1, 2025 | 12:10 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Veteran fisherman Howard Moxam stood solemnly on the battered shoreline of Treasure Beach, St Elizabeth, his weathered gaze fixed on the restless sea that had stripped him of nearly everything.
“I have been fishing from the age of 14 when my father, Oliver Moxam, died,” he recalled, eyes cast toward the horizon. “I had to take care of the younger ones until everybody turned big and were on their own.”
Decades of experience on the water offered Moxam little defence against Hurricane Melissa, which made landfall as a catastrophic Category 5 system on Tuesday.
“Sixty-seven brand-new fish pots – and all of them are gone,” he said. “Because in the last storm (Beryl), we only found about eight out of over 100 pots. This one is worse than Beryl, so we are not looking for anything out there again. It would be luck and chance if we do buck anything.”
For lifelong fishermen like Moxam, the sea – once their lifeline – has turned hostile. The normally tranquil Calabash Bay Beach is now unrecognisable, its familiar sands buried beneath mounds of stone and coral hurled ashore by raging waves.
“It’s the first time since I was a little boy that I am seeing the beach like this,” Moxam told The Gleaner. “Beryl came and never did the beach like this. As Beryl was gone, the next day we could go to sea. These whole heaps of rocks were never here after Beryl.”
With boats grounded and fish pots obliterated, livelihoods have ground to a halt.
“Well, we have to watch the weather before we can venture out at sea again. Our boats are docked up,” he said. “Everything is gone. We used to take fish and sell them to vendors in St James, but now there will be no fish for now because all the pots are mashed up at sea, from here all the way to Honduras.”
Across the village, devastation extended far beyond the shore. Shanique Hamilton, an employee at the Treasure Beach branch of the Jamaica Fishermen Cooperative, said the hurricane wrecked the building that housed vital supplies and records for local fisherfolk.
“When I came here following the passage of the storm, everything was damaged,” Hamilton said. “The only thing we saved was some wires. The computers and other records have been damaged.”
She explained that the cooperative served fishers from Calabash Bay, Great Bay, Billings Bay, and even Alligator Pond.
“The back of the building is okay, but the front of the store is damaged with everything in there,” she said. “Last year, in Hurricane Beryl, nothing happened to us, but everything is damaged this time.”
Nearby, another structure that stored boat engines was completely flattened.
Evert Watson, an employee of Jake’s Holdings, which operates Jack Sprat Restaurant and Jake’s Treasure Beach, confirmed that the beloved seaside spot was also ravaged.
“It’s really bad,” he said after inspecting the properties. “The sea went in and took off the roof at Jack Sprat. Trees and stones were dumped into the restaurant.”