Beautiful Beaches A Thing Of The Past

The continuing sore point in the area is, of course - sand - or rather, the lack of it - beach sand. Before the days of golf and polo most tourists came to Barbados for the sun, sand and sea. Well, the sand is in crisis, and guess what - tourists are noticing and complaining. Pretty soon, if they are not doing so already, they will start voting with their feet and wallets by hightailing it to other equally gorgeous paradises like Cancun where there is an abundance of sand recently dredged up from the ocean. While the sand is in fairly good condition immediately in front of the beach bar on Mullins Beach where most tourists hangout, it is in severe crisis elsewhere in the area where tourists traditionally go strolling. It is now almost impossible to stroll north from the beach bar at high tide - a situation most people in the area attribute to the groins installed at what they are calling St. Peter’s Bay Condos next to Sandridge Hotel.

The idyllic photos above are still being used on the Island Hideaways website to market the upmarket villa, The Great House ($5,000 - $8000 usd a night, ouch!), which is the property immediately south of the former Kings Beach Hotel which in turn borders St. Peter’s Bay Condos. Below, however, is the reality of the beach in front of The Great House today (photo taken July 15, 2007). The coconut trees have been gone for a while but most of the rest of the erosion has happened since the groins went up last year. They keep propping up the deck for sunbathing but we have not seen them set it up for sunset dining in a long while, hummm…

Looking south towards Mullins Beach itself the tragedy keeps unfolding in the photos below. Who would believe that not so long ago this beach had as much sand as Mullins and tourists strolled up and down picking up shells, etc., even at high tide. The situation is now so bad that just this past week the Cassandra II apartments had to put down the stone-filled wire baskets (pictured below) to try to stop their property from falling into the sea. It is so frustrating to see these stopgap measures taken that do absolutely nothing for the beach itself but what else can small property owners in the area do. This blog continues to call for a re-sanding of the whole area. Is there anybody listening, anybody?

www.chatteljentillia.info