Caribbean > Jamaica > South Coast > Treasure Beach > Articles > Treasure Beach

The sky was heavy with stars. Every so often, one of them would break free from its mooring and hurtle in a silvery streak towards the sea. Then the terrier dozing at my feet would stretch and yawn, before settling back with his head soft against my bare toes. If I ever managed to clamber out of this chair, it would be a minor miracle.

It’s a common problem at Treasure Beach, this inertia business. Here, on Jamaica’s south coast, is a retreat far removed from the plastic wristbands and organised activities of the all-inclusive resorts of the north and west. It’s so laid-back even the Jamaicans come here to unwind, something they must feel they need - although to the outsider they seem pretty relaxed already. But even though time moved so slowly it seemed it was almost going backwards, somehow there was never a dull moment.

For a start, there were all the hours that slipped away gracefully at Jake’s, which I would call a hotel if that weren’t a terribly inadequate description for something so individual. A handful of artistically rustic cottages, each one more fanciful than the rest, is scattered almost casually around the grounds. There's an adobe house, for instance, whose first-floor room has double beds inside and out, for falling asleep by moonlight, or you can doze off to the crash of waves washing beneath a room out on stilts from the seashore. No wonder Chris Blackwell - as in Island Records -added it to his exquisite portfolio of Island Outpost hotels.

The handful of guests - well, there are only 10 rooms, after all - looked quietly happy with their situation. Actually, even the resident dogs looked as if they were smiling. After a drink from the bar, so was I. We lined up our chairs and rum-and-Cokes on the terrace, looking across the scooped-out mosaic swimming pool at the sea. The waves crashed on to bare rock in the cove below us where Hurricane Mitch had decided to remove the beach a year or two before. No one seemed to mind this natural re-arrangement; anyway, as everyone kept telling Jason Henzell - whose family owns, designs and runs Jake’s - the sand will come back.

There was plenty of the stuff in the bay below the Treasure Beach Hotel, which with its 36 rooms may count as a colossus round here but is actually wonderfully small and personal. A stroll through the gardens, past the pools and down a short flight of steps brought me to a great sweep of dark golden beach. There was hardly anyone in sight, and palm trees hid any buildings. Further along, I could see a few painted wooden shacks and fishing boats pulled up on the shore. Otherwise, it could almost have been a desert island.

I made towards the most colourful hut, which was obviously a bar though I couldn’t see a name on it. It had a small shady verandah with weather-beaten wooden benches round the edge, and I sank on to one with a teeth-numbingly cold Red Stripe beer in my hand and my toes digging into the cool sand. The other seats were taken by a mixed crew of locals and long-term visitors. It promised to be perfect eavesdropping territory. Sadly, I hadn’t counted on the local accent. I didn’t understand a single word, and had to make do with surreptitiously peeking at the flame-haired rasta with freckles and red eyes, evidence of both the many Scottish people who settled this area in the past and the ready supply of weed.

You might expect dinner in a small resort like Treasure Beach to be faintly disappointing. In fact, both the restaurants I ate in were superb. At the Treasure Beach Hotel, we tucked into wonderful fish and promised ourselves lobster the next time. At Jake’s we had crab and akee on toast, followed by kingfish in coconut cream, and wondered whether to make an appointment with the bicycling masseur Joshua Stein. Then we sank into chairs by the sea and didn’t seem to be able to get out of them.

And that, more or less, was the nightlife. There was talk in Jake’s one evening of an expedition to Fisherman’s Bar a few hundred yards away for dancing, drinking and pool. But when we got there, the bamboo shack was deserted apart from a solitary drinker slouched on the bar. We’d lost track of the days and come here on a Tuesday; word is that it’s a great deal livelier at the weekend. So it was back to the chairs and the dogs and the shooting stars.

Daylight brought with it a desire to explore. Bouncing along the half-paved pot-holed dirt track that passes for a road, we headed out towards the small town of Black River through dry scrub and cactus and past eye-catching signs like “John Wayne Lawn & Video Club”. We arrived, shaken, just in time for the next cruise on the river that gives the town its name and spent the next hour slowly gliding through clear water that seems black because of the peat riverbed. We passed egrets nesting in the mangrove and great mats of water hyacinth with lilac flowers; we saw fish-hawks and blue herons and watched the crocodiles being fed. We were so relaxed we even laughed at our guide Peter’s terrible jokes, of which this is a sample: [pointing to large lump on tree] “There’s not a single termite left in that nest… no, all are married!”

Fearing that wasn’t enough exploration, we drove on upriver to the curiously named YS Falls. A tractor-propelled jitney carriage hauled us through parkland with huge spreading trees and horses grazing, then jungly greenery rich with the smell of warm dampness. At the foot of the falls, we clambered out and up, past cascades and pools to the top. People were recovering from the afternoon heat with a swim and we joined them, but left the rope swing to a group of over-excited American teenagers.

We drove back through Middle Quarters, past the roadside ladies with their now rather forlorn bags of fiery pepper shrimps. We’d definitely try them another time, we said. But for now, we had to get back to Treasure Beach. After all, there was some serious loafing to be done.

Articles

• More from Claire Gervat