The Swim for the Sanctuary event has received a major boost, after the meet was officially recognised as a qualifying event for the CARIFTA Swimming Championships, a development organisers say will help grow open-water swimming in Jamaica while continuing to raise funds for the White River Fish Sanctuary.

The event will take place today at the White River House, Shaw Park Beach in Ocho Rios, with races beginning at 7:30 am.

Event organiser Kyle Mais, director of the Jamaica Inn Foundation, described the CARIFTA designation as a significant milestone for competitive ocean swimming in Jamaica and believes the recognition will also go some way towards helping to raise awareness around the event’s core purpose.

“This is a very exciting addition to the prospect for local swimming,” Mais said. “It’s a big feather in our cap. It underlines the fact that this is a very well-run event. We have a great meet director in Alan Beckford, the timing, safety, you name it, it’s all to international standards. It really speaks to the quality of the event and ocean swimming in Jamaica isn’t as popular as the pool events, so this is a way to really expand it.”

The meet will feature internationally recognised distances, with the 3K and 5K swims serving as CARIFTA qualifiers.

“What we have done with this swim, we have different lengths, so the Carifta qualifiers are really the 3K and the 5K,” said Mais, who added that younger swimmers are also catered to through shorter races aimed at introducing them to open-water competition.

“The 500m and 1K are typically just pool events but because we want to attract very young swimmers to come out, that suits them perfectly to get them used to ocean swimming and so on for the eight-to-10-year-olds,” he noted.

The meet will also see the inclusion of a 4x100m relay as well as a 500m paddleboard race, with proceeds from that event going towards the Jamaica Surfing Association.

Meanwhile, despite being postponed from its original date in early November due to the passage of Hurricane Melissa, participation numbers continue to rise with organisers targeting 100 swimmers.

“Things are looking really good. First of all the weather looks really good for an ocean swim and so we are very happy about that. We have confirmed 81 swimmers and as you know we will get a lot of last-minute entries so we will certainly reach our target numbers,” Mais said.

All swimming entry proceeds will benefit the White River Fish Sanctuary, which is a marine conservation zone located off the Ocho Rios coastline, which was designed to protect and rehabilitate the marine environment, coral reefs while regenerating and restoring the fish population in the area.

The initiative has seen significant results over the years and is one of the island’s most successful, community-led, environmental projects.

“We are hoping to raise over a million towards the sanctuary, which will go a long way towards helping the operations which keep the oceans healthy and try to help it recover from all that is happening with global warming and climate change — and this is a very important reason for the event itself,” said Mais.

Elon Parkinson (centre), communications manager at Petrojam, has the attention of Jamaica Inn Foundation board member Belinda Morrow and Jonathan Hernould, manager, White River Fish Sanctuary, during the launch of Swim for the Sanctuary at Jamaica Inn on Thursday, October 18, 2025. Swim for the Sanctuary will take place on January 24 at Shaw Park Beach in Ocho Rios. Rahyme McKenzie

MAIS… this is a very exciting addition to the prospect for local swimming.