When your laying on your favorite Jamaican beach, surveying your surroundings, you would not be surprised to learn that this small island has produced not one but three, yes three, Miss World winners.



Of course, those of us, lucky enough to have spent some time on these awesome beaches are more than surprised that it has only been three: I counted dozens of possibles, the last time I visited Negril. Ocho Rios produced another dozen candidates and the local ladies playing in the water at Bluefields, well you get the idea.

This is not so amazing, of course, when you consider that such personalities as Naomi Campbell and Grace Jones hail from Jamaican backgrounds. This island produces some beautiful, and some, eventually famous, people.

Harry Belafonte and Desmond Dekker for example, didn't do so badly in the music and entertainment industry. Linford Christie and Donovan Bailey certainly made their marks in the world of sport: especially at the Olympics. In fact Jamaica is quite well known for it's track and field performers, as well as it's cricketers and boxers.

Which reminds me not to forget to add in the famous (or is that infamous?) Jamaican Bobsled team: a real team that captured the hearts of many at the winter Olympics and ended up on the silver screen. These guys started from very humble beginnings but they had a dream, a great desire and with a great deal of hard work, they were successful.

But possibly the most famous Jamaican of them all has to be Robert Nesta Marley, the impoverished boy of mixed parentage who rose to become not only a reggae musician of world renown but, with the added dreadlocks, a symbol of the Rastafarian faith.

You can't escape the music of this famous Jamaican, it seems to be everywhere, it seems to be the soul of the island. You can visit the Bob Marley museum and his mausoleum in Nine-Miles, and the head bobbing rhythms will follow you.

Yes, as you lay back and catch the rays, with your Rum and Ginger in your hand, think about the many famous Jamaicans that this small tropical island in the Caribbean has produced and what a strong influence these characters have had on their world surroundings. Don Quarrie, Patrick Ewing, Asafa Powell and Jimmy Cliff to name but a few more. The list is very long, too long for one beach, your going to have to visit another!

Jamaica beaches are famous around the world, just like many of the people that this amazing little island has produced, and while you spend the days dreamily contemplating your navel, you have the time and relaxed mood to examine these finer points of Jamaican culture: well, before the evening beach festival starts anyway!

Your missing out on a famous experience. You need to go see for yourself mon!