Kingston Waterfront, Jamaica tide times

Kingston Harbour is the largest natural harbour in the Caribbean by area — roughly 200 square kilometres of sheltered water enclosed by the Palisadoes tombolo on the south and the Blue Mountains, rising to 2,256 metres, immediately behind the city to the north. The harbour has been the commercial heart of Jamaica for four centuries; the Kingston waterfront on the northern shore is the modern face of that history, with the Ocean Boulevard redevelopment strip running along the base of the city's downtown district. The historic context lives at Port Royal, on the tip of the Palisadoes 12 km to the south.

Port Royal was, in the third quarter of the 17th century, the most prosperous English city in the Americas — a trading, privateer, and navy base of such economic importance that it was called 'the wickedest city on earth' in the contemporary pamphlet literature, a phrase that seems to have referred to its wealth rather than its morals specifically. The earthquake of June 7, 1692 liquefied the sandy fill on which the western third of the town was built and dropped it into the harbour in approximately two minutes. Contemporary accounts describe the land tilting and buildings sliding into the sea in sequence.

The submerged section — warehouses, wharves, taverns, a fort — lies in 4 to 6 metres of water and constitutes one of the most intact 17th-century archaeological sites in the western hemisphere. The above-water Port Royal today is a small fishing community, Fort Charles (still standing), the Giddy House, and a boat service to the Kingston waterfront. The Palisadoes road and the Norman Manley International Airport at the far tip of the spit produce the thin linear geography that defines the harbour's southern boundary.

7 metres — somewhat larger than the fully enclosed inner harbours further west because Kingston Harbour is wide and open to the tidal signal entering from the Caribbean between the Palisadoes and the mainland at the harbour mouth. 5 knots on a spring ebb, noticeable for small boats transiting between the harbour and the open sea. 5 knots across most of the basin.

Kayakers launching from the Kingston waterfront and paddling toward Port Royal work the flood tide for the outbound leg; the ebb back to Kingston requires less effort but the afternoon trade wind across the 12-km fetch produces a chop that makes the return harder from mid-afternoon onward. Shore anglers fish the Palisadoes road banks on the evening flood for jacks and snapper. The Port Royal ruins dive site is managed by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust; permits and documentation are required for archaeological dives, and recreational diving on the site without a licensed operator is prohibited.

3 metres on height.