Two origin stories compete for the name Runaway Bay. One holds that enslaved people from nearby plantations fled to this stretch of coastline, launching themselves toward Cuba in whatever vessels they could find. The other points to 1670, when the last Spanish troops on the island boarded ships here after their defeat by the British, running from a colony they had held for nearly two centuries. Both stories are probably true. The Arawak people, Jamaica's original inhabitants, had already been displaced by those same Spanish colonizers who would later flee from this bay. What makes the name haunting is its layering -- each era of occupation produced its own fugitives, its own desperate departures from this same curving shore.

Runaway Bay sits 12 miles west of Ocho Rios and 50 miles east of Montego Bay, making it one of Jamaica's smallest resort areas. Just to the east lies Discovery Bay, where Christopher Columbus made landfall in 1494 on his second voyage to the Americas. The geography here is classic north coast Jamaica: a narrow coastal strip backed by limestone hills that rise into the interior. South of Runaway Bay, those hills shelter the village of Nine Mile, where Bob Marley was born and spent his childhood. The connections to celebrity run deeper along this coast. Ian Fleming lived in nearby Oracabessa, writing his James Bond novels at an estate called Goldeneye. Noel Coward, the British playwright and composer, settled at Firefly Estate near Port Maria, where he is buried. This stretch of Jamaica's coast has long attracted people seeking something -- refuge, inspiration, or reinvention.

The real treasures at Runaway Bay lie offshore. The town's reef system is considered among the finest diving in Jamaica, with sites like the Canyon and Ricky's Reef drawing snorkelers and certified divers alike. The coral formations run close to shore, making even casual snorkeling rewarding. But it is the Ganja Planes that capture the imagination -- a pair of small aircraft resting on the seabed, remnants of the era when Jamaica's north coast was a transit point for marijuana smuggling. The planes have been underwater long enough to become artificial reefs in their own right, their fuselages colonized by sponges, sea fans, and schools of sergeant majors. Most hotels in Runaway Bay offer organized dives to these sites, turning the town's outlaw history into a tourist attraction.

The population of Runaway Bay was just 1,116 at the 1970 census. By 2011, it had grown nearly eightfold to 8,640, a surge driven almost entirely by the resort economy. All-inclusive hotels dominate the waterfront, and an eighteen-hole golf course at the Breezes Runaway Bay Resort and Golf Club has hosted championship events. The east end of town merges into a community called Salem, with no clear boundary between the two. Despite the growth, Runaway Bay remains far smaller and quieter than the major resort hubs of Montego Bay or Ocho Rios. That modest scale is part of the appeal -- a coast where the reefs are close, the history runs deep, and the name on every map remembers the people who once risked everything to leave.