Mullins Bay Blog

Pic Of The Day

2012-02-10T15:43:00.000-05:00

Mullins Beach 02/10/12 (click top half of image to enlarge)

Cloudy day on Mullins Beach today, but would you rather be here ... or on the banks of the Danube?

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Time To Head For Mullins Beach

2012-02-03T15:26:00.000-05:00

Click top of image to enlarge

"The UK is set for another bitterly cold night with temperatures possibly reaching -12C, forecasters have said.Sennybridge in south Wales recorded minus 11.3C (11.7F) on Thursday night and the Met Office has severe weather warnings in place until Sunday.It has warned that heavy snow could fall across much of England and Wales, with southern and central areas likely to be the worst hit.Sport has been hit by the weather, with several Football League matches off.Two race meetings - at Sandown Park and Wetherby - have also been called off due to frozen tracks.The AA says it has been receiving 1,800 calls an hour from motorists.Snow is forecast for much of the country on Saturday, with central and eastern parts of England expecting 5-10cm (up to 4in).BBC weather forecaster Alex Deakin said: "It's from tomorrow [Saturday] afternoon, and through the evening, overnight into Sunday, we are expecting some heavy snowfall across the central and eastern counties of England."Certainly a few centimetres, possible as much as 10cm in some places. And, yes, that is expected to cause a few problems."He said the cold conditions were likely to continue into the early part of next week.Areas expected to record snowfall of up to 15cm include Cumbria, Lincolnshire, East Anglia, North Yorkshire and the Peak District.The Met Office has issued amber cold weather alerts for a large swathe of the country.This alerts organisations, including Age UK, to the health risks to elderly and ill people. It will remain in place at least until Sunday.The temperature at Sennybridge was a record low for this winter and similar temperatures were recorded in the villages of Benson in Oxfordshire and Braemar in Aberdeenshire."

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16873411
See also: Barbados TravelAdvisor

Oi Yoi Yoi Something's Happening

2011-12-23T08:08:00.000-05:00

It looks like we are witnessing a new chapter in the Kings Beach saga. After many years of laying derelict the property was debushed and cleaned up over the last few weeks and a construction fence has gone up around it. As per usual here in Barbados no announcements were made about what's going on here - far-less any attempt to involve the local community which has to live with whatever gets built; and then we say we want to be a developed country by whenever ... What we do know is that Kings Beach was sold last September (supposedly to The Great House next door). Then there was a rumour that both The Great House and Kings Beach Hotel were to be torn down to make way for some other tourism development. There was also a rumour that The Great House had flipped the property within days of the purchase. Now there is a rumour that a five-storey condo complex is to be constructed on the site which for years already had the necessary planning approval for such a project. Oi yoi yoi, just what we always wanted in Road View for Christmas - Santa Claus with his bag of fifty more empty and slow-selling condos.

Going Postal On Coastal

2011-11-28T10:28:00.001-05:00

Going postal is a phenomenon first noticed among postal workers in the United States where usually on a Monday morning one worker suddenly takes out his frustrations with his job, life or whatever on his work colleagues by blowing as many of them away as he possibly can with a firearm or weapon of some sort. Let me state up front that this post is in no way intended to be construed as a call to take up arms against anyone or any organization. The title above is simply a caricature of the title of the new television series currently on CBC TV Channel 8 from and by the local Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU) called "Going Coastal." CZMU itself was quite obviously basking in the cachet of the "going postal" metaphor or at least had to know people would make that connection. The point of this posting is to criticize the style and content of that show.

I missed the first episode of the series last week because I hardly ever watch local TV largely because of its fair of the dumb-down programming and government propaganda. However, I kept seeing the ads for "Going Coastal" in the print media and decided I should find out what really was going on as someone who was interested in environmental and coastal issues.

The only laudable thing about this show is the effort to enlighten the masses about the water that surrounds the island. Most Barbadians have no concept of the coasts and ocean beyond the occasional rare (and getting rarer) beach outing, nor do they care enough even to find the time to learn to swim; consequently, it's only by the grace of God that a major tragedy has not yet occurred on one of those so-called "party boats." Any effort, therefore, which tries to broaden that worldview should be commended.

Unfortunately, however, the style and content of this show leaves much to be desired. For its prime-time slot its target audience seems to be primary schools kids. It jumps from subject matter to subject matter like a bad soap opera trying to keep half a dozen plots and sub-plots in the air all at once. It looks like it was stitched together by an amateur film editor with a few unrelated clips struggling with apps and a new laptop. It does not at all come across as a serious show dealing with serious issues that are critical to the quality of life and economy of this country. And, talking about the economy, in the current economic climate ~~change~~ I really want to thank the presenter who boasted about her junket to Monaco. It is really good to know our tax dollars can still allow her such useless "perks."

In my humble opinion, instead of jumping around from subject to seemingly unrelated subject this show and the viewing public would and could have been better served by selecting one aspect of coastal management per episode and spending the half hour properly exploring it. Coastal issues are too vital to be reduced to the sound bytes of the pop culture format.

The Choisuel/St. Lucia Tragedy: Lessons for Road View/Mullins and Barbados

2011-11-12T11:49:00.001-05:00

St. Lucia and the larger Caribbean region have been plunged into mourning this weekend as a result of a tragic traffic accident last Thursday night which saw the loss of at least 16 (some reports claim as many as two dozen) precious lives. This accident hits home for this blogger as the area where it happened was part of my old stomping ground when I worked in Soufriere, St. Lucia many years ago. My thoughts and prayers are with the families left behind. Now is the time for us in Barbados to stand with our brothers and sisters in St. Lucia in their hour of trial. Keep in mind also that just over a year ago this same general area of the country bore the brunt of Tropical Storm Tomas and is still in recovery mode. St. Lucia is our closest neighbour after St. Vincent, many St. Lucians call Barbados home, and many more, including their Nobel Laureates - Sir Arthur Lewis and Derek Walcott - are of Bajan descent. "But for the grace of God, there go [we]."

It can happen here and has happened here in Barbados - re: the Lancaster and Horse Hill disasters. In reading some of the online comments by St. Lucians about this accident I am eerily reminded about what we are calling for in the Road View & Mullins Beach Road Safety Petition:

Makak Zel Gosh says:
November 11, 2011 at 7:55 am
Let me express my Condolonces to the grieving famalies during this tragedy.
During my visit to the island I noticed that the immediate vacinity of the road signs were continuing to be obstructed by tree branches, shrubs, bush etc.. The lack of reflectors when approaching Speed Bumps, for the locals this is not a problem but for returning Nationals and Tourists alike who are unaware of the location of those bumps creates a major problem at night. St. Lucia needs to take road safety more seriously by maintaining and erecting road signs islandwide, not just in the Nothern part of the island.
Let us wake up and do things to international standards as opposed to mediocrity.

Jerry Johnson says:
November 11, 2011 at 1:10 pm
The majority of the transport drivers in St Lucia drive under the delusion they are Formula One drivers and rarely perform suspension repairs until after the fact and only replace tires when they are bald. It was only a matter of time before a driver in an overloaded van drove too fast for conditions.
My sincere sympathies to the families and a head’s up to the island’s department of transportation to perform more diligent preventative road maintenance and to the police to actually enforce the laws.

Accidents like this and the loss of life and the grief they cause are not inevitable; they are entirely preventable when we come together - governments and people - to eliminate the traffic issues and hazards that cause them. The dangerous bends and lack of signage warning of them, lack of sidewalks, overgrown hedges, speeding buses, cars and trucks, and impaired driving all combine in our area to make another Choisuel disaster waiting to happen. We had a close call last August 24 when several British tourists and one local were taken to hospital. Let this be our wake-up call. Sign the Road View & Mullins Beach Road Safety Petition and support the Barbados Road Safety Awareness efforts today. The life you save could be your own.

More Sand Than You Can Shake A Stick At ...

2011-11-11T04:03:00.001-05:00

Mullins Beach - Fall 2011 (click in top portion of image to enlarge)

... but will it last?

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Here We Go Again ...

2011-10-27T17:58:00.000-04:00

Rush hour traffic was backed up for about half an hour just after eight o’clock this morning by yet another fender-bender in front of the Texaco service station in Road View. This is at least the fourth such incident in less than three months. Although this particular accident was minor, it again underscores the danger to pedestrians and motorists inherent in the stretch of roadway between the Gibbses/Mullins border and Sweet Home Gap, Road View, St. Peter, Barbados. Several people have been hospitalized as a result of these incidences and it’s only a matter of time before there is another fatality in the area if nothing is done to rectify the problems. This is not a joke nor am I being too overly dramatic - people will die here soon if we continue to do nothing.

If you have not done so already, I urge all reading this to sign the online “Road View & Mullins Beach Road Safety Petition” to pressure public officials to act fast on this issue before it is eternally too late. Also, to show your wider support for road safety in Barbados consider adding the Barbados Road Safety PicBadge to your Facebook or Twitter profile picture for a day, a week, a month, or longer as you see fit. Thanks.

See also:

Think Globally - Act Locally

Road View Headache (Nationnews.com)

Barbados Road Safety Awareness

Think Globally - Act Locally

2011-10-24T17:21:00.000-04:00

Sign the Road View & Mullins Beach Road Safety Petition

Wear the Barbados Road Safety PicBadge

Another week - yet another car-bus accident by the Texaco service station in Road View/Mullins

Troublemaker

2011-10-19T23:42:00.000-04:00

MKL Memorial Washington DC

They finally dedicated the monument to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, DC, USA this past weekend. His life and work have been important influences on the life of this blogger as indeed also on the lives of many people around the world. Far be it from me to compare myself to the great civil rights leader and martyr but our birthdays are a day apart, we both graduated from the same school - Boston University (32 years apart), and I learned this week that like my hero - I am also a "troublemaker." Yes, I was within earshot of a conversation this week where a supervisor (at the construction site in Upper Road View/Mullins reported here for polluting the ocean on a daily basis for the last several weeks) described me as a “troublemaker.”

José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva

Let me say up front that I do not have a martyr complex. We all know what happened to Dr. King and many others before and after him who were vilified as troublemakers for standing up for truth and justice, etc. We all know what happened to José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife, Maria do Espírito Santo less than five months ago for trying to protect the Amazon Rainforest. For the last six years this blog has been the proverbial voice crying in the wilderness here in Road View/Mullins for social and environmental justice. I have seen the beaches upon which I grew up disappear largely because of poor coastal management. All I have ever sought to do was to call attention to what was happening so that corrective action could be taken before it was too late. Apparently, for some people that is troublemaking.

These are the same people who built three massive rock groynes on the beach in Lower Road View that have decimated Kings Beach downdrift of it, but apparently that was not troublemaking. Those groynes also forced a neighboring property to spend US$250K on a seawall and rock revetment, but apparently that was not troublemaking. They are forcing people against their will to move from spots upon which they lived for generations, but apparently that is not troublemaking. They just bulldozed a Road View landmark to build a ~~beachfront~~ waterfront villa for uber-rich foreigners buttressed by a brand new massive seawall built in the ocean that now cuts off Road View from Mullins Beach making it treacherous, if not totally impossible, to walk the beach between Mullins and Road View, but apparently that too is not troublemaking.

When confronted about their construction practices the first thing out of their mouths is that all that they are doing and have done is with the blessing of the Coastal Zone Management Unit. This is the same CZMU which preaches out of the other corner of its mouth that the building of seawalls, building too close to the water, etc., are responsible for the current sorry state of west coast beaches. If pointing out this hypocrisy and agitating for the social, environmental and economic well-being of the place where my navel string is buried earns me the troublemaker label, then - MORE POWER TO THE TROUBLEMAKERS!

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round heads in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Author Unknown

Another week - yet another car-bus accident by the Texaco service station in Road View/Mullins

2011-10-04T12:21:00.001-04:00

Click top portion of image to enlarge

Click here for more pictures.

Click here to read about previous accidents at this location.

Click here or on the widget top left to petition the Ministry Of Transport & Works to investigate and implement necessary changes to preserve life and limb. If you use Hwy 1B through Road View/Mullins, the life you save could be your own.

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BEWARE OF MULLINS BEACH AREA

2011-09-27T15:32:00.003-04:00

Click top portion of image to enlarge

So, the last few days have been stiflingly hot with little or no breeze except from out of the southwest. The only way to get cool for a few minutes has been to go for a swim. This blogger was taking such a dip in the sea today around noon and all was going swimmingly until I noticed a foul chemical odor in the water and noticed that it had turned milky. I decided that something bad was happening and that I needed to get out of the water as quickly as possible. It was then that I noticed a juvenile turtle sticking its head out of the milky water in the nearshore area as if it were suffocating and/or struggling to to leave the area. I have never seen the sea look like this before except after prolonged heavy rains - and we have not seen a drop of rain for several days.

It was only after complaining to relatives visiting from the UK and USA who had gone about two hundred yards up the beach to Mullins that I learned of the source of the discharge - the JADA construction site opposite the Texaco Service Station in Road View, St. Peter. I was swimming in JADA's swill. This blog has reported on construction discharge being pumped untreated into the ocean before at the site of The Palazatte in Lower Road View. Apparently, those complaints have either fallen on death ears in the offices of the-powers-that-be in environment and coastal management, "cat got [their] tongue," or even more sinister - in the proverbial words of the old people - "duppie know who to frighten."

Mullins Beach Warning

Until this water is tested and certified by some eco-labeling organisation such as Blue Flag you swim at your own risk anywhere in the Mullins Bay area - that includes bathers and watersports enthusiasts from the prestigious Royal Westmoreland Beach Club on Mullins Beach. What you see in these pictures is scary enough but what you can't see may be even more dangerous for your health and the environment.

How Many More, How Many More, Mr. Minister of Transport ...???

2011-09-26T07:29:00.000-04:00

Click top portion of image to enlarge

Another accident early this morning involving a speeding Transport Board bus, according to one eyewitness, and two cars blocked the road in Road View for several minutes forcing some traffic turnarounds. Although there were apparently no injuries, this accident occurring almost on the same spot where several British tourists were injured by another speeding Transport Board bus just a month ago underlines the need for urgent corrective action to be taken at this location for the safety of both pedestrians and motorists. How many more, Mr. Minister of Transport & Works, how many more accidents do you want to see occur on this spot before you act? Do you also need a couple dead bodies on the roadway?

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Is St. Peter Getting A Third Marina?

2011-09-20T05:10:00.000-04:00

"The luxury Port St. Charles Marina in St. Peter is in line to get more upscale company in addition to the massive Port Ferdinand marina project now taking shape a stone’s throw away.More than 23 acres of land once located Heywood’s across the street from Port St. Charles north of Speightstown is to be the location of 152 housing units, already approved by the Town Planning Department. Barbados TODAY was reliably informed that the land once owned by the City of Bridgetown Credit Union was being sold for $50 million by real estate companies here and overseas.“Town Planning approval was obtained some years ago for a substantial development of 152 units positioned around a man-made lake. The site falls within the Special Development Area and would therefore benefit from concessions on taxes and duties,” an outline of the real estate venture stated.“This prime site comprises approximately 23.86 acres of land, and is ideally situated directly opposite the exclusive marina development of Port St. Charles just north of historic Speightstown. The Port Ferdinand marina, currently under construction, is located just to the north of this site,” it added. Once the property was sold it would be up to the new owners to determine whether they wanted to proceed with the project exactly as previously prescribed..."

Source: Barbados Today

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Save Our Shoreline Invitation

2011-09-13T02:33:00.000-04:00

You are cordially invited to visit and "Like" our Save Our Shoreline (SOS) Facebook page to lend your support as we continue to seek ways and means to raise awareness of the negative consequences of beach hardening and/or beach armouring, and promote beach nourishment as the preferred solution for combating beach erosion in Barbados. Click here to go there now.

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Sargassum Invades Mullins Beach

2011-09-10T22:49:00.000-04:00

Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Sargassum Seaweed Event:

'via Blog this'

Show Us Your Favorite Barbados Beach Photo

2011-09-07T07:36:00.000-04:00

Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Show Us Your Favorite Barbados Beach Photo:

'via Blog this'

Kings Beach Going, Going, Gone?

2011-08-31T22:26:00.001-04:00

"The saga surrounding the sale of the now ruined King’s Beach Hotel is about to come to a happy, but incomplete ending.

In an arrangement being managed by Scotiabank Barbados, a deal for the acquisition of the St. Peter property for $32 million is to be sealed on September 13, Barbados TODAY has confirmed.

But investigations also revealed that in a new twist to the long running affair, three non nationals resident in Barbados, Anthony Reid, Michael L. Challis, and Marcus J.F. Clarke, who allegedly pulled out of a May 30, 2008 contract to buy the property for almost $65 million, will now be sued for about $33 million in damages.

This, sources connected to the deal said, would be pursued next month on completion of the current sale to Atlantic Paradise Limited, which owns The Great House, an upscale “two storey plantation style home” located to the south of the hotel.

These developments were confirmed by King’s Beach Hotel owner Martin Richards, who said he was happy there would finally be some closure to the matter, and that like his neighbours he was disappointed to see the hotel fall into disrepair, a matter he said was not his responsibility since he had turned responsibility over to the bank so a new buyer could be found.
Richards said he was aware of the sale of the hotel property by next month, and that while the property would have to be knocked down, he was uncertain if previous plans to construct 32 luxury condos would be continued by the new owners ..."

Read more: Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Kings Beach Going, Going, Gone???:

'via Blog this'

You probably will not see this in the glossy Barbados tourism literature ...

2011-08-29T05:26:00.001-04:00

Kings Beach 08-28-11 (click in top portion of image to enlarge)

... but the above picture of tourists scotching on what's left of Kings Beach at low tide downdrift of the groynes in Lower Road View, St. Peter (southernmost groyne visible lower left) tells the sad tale of the economic and environmental demise of tourism in the Road View/Mullins Bay area. Since Kings Beach Hotel failed and Sandridge Hotel was sold to the condo developers the beach between Sandridge and Mullins Beach that once bustled with tourists has for all practical purposes become a tourist ghost town.

The 57 new condos at St. Peter's Bay which were "officially opened" about a year and a half ago are almost always empty or very close to it. It has even come to the attention of this blogger that a British family which booked a vacation there recently cancelled and stayed elsewhere on the island when it came to their attention that they would have been the only guests on the entire compound during their stay.

Even more sad is the fact that the three massive groynes constructed to build up the beach for the condo owners are now contributing to the hastening of the destruction of the beaches downdrift of them including King Beach immediately to the south as pictured above. It is now impossible to walk the beach between the former Sandrige Hotel and Mullins Beach at high tide and very difficult even at low tide. What we have in Road View Road/Mullins is an unmitigated environmental and economic disaster that getting worse by the minute and no one is addressing it.

See also: Save Our Shoreline

Click here for more Kings Beach photos

Amazing Badge Changing Barbados

2011-08-25T11:48:00.000-04:00

Click here to get your own badge for your Twitter or Facebook profile.

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British Tourists Injured In Bus/car Accident In Road View/Mullins

2011-08-24T15:18:00.001-04:00

(click in top portion of image to enlarge)

Several British tourists and at least one local were injured today and taken away by ambulance from the scene of an accident in Upper Road View, St. Peter involving a Transport Board bus and a rental car in which the tourists were occupants. The injured local was a pregnant female who was a passenger aboard the bus. The accident occurred around twelve noon in front of the Texaco service station in Road View which is located near a slight bend in the road which has been hazardous to both pedestrians and motorists, as this blog has reported in the past. This blogger's thoughts and prayers are for the speedy recovery and well being of the injured, and although I am not a prophet nor the son of one, I TOLD YOU SO! I told you this day would come, and it is going to get worse as long as the authorities continue ignore the call of this blog for something to be done about this dangerous stretch of roadway with an open pit on one side in this high volume tourist area so close to the popular Mullins Beach.

Click here for more pictures and feedback on the Road View Lime.

Click here to read about previous accidents near this spot.

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Recent Tweets You May Have Missed

2011-08-22T02:35:00.000-04:00

Follow @SaveMullinsBay on Twitter.

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Save Mullins Bay Social Media Promo 1

2011-08-19T21:30:00.002-04:00

Save Mullins Bay Portal

Save Mullins Bay Cause

Save Mullins Bay Facebook Group

Save Mullins Bay Twitter

Save Mullins Bay YouTube Channel

See also: Barbados TravelAdvisor - Save Mullins Bay & The Social Media Revolution: Action Call

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Poor Coastal Management Of The Mullins Bay Area As Seen From Space

2011-08-15T06:44:00.001-04:00

Three massive groynes seen at top of this photo have contributed to significant
accretion to the north and devastating erosion to the south in Road View

For the benefit of new readers who may have landed on this blog as a result of two articles that appeared recently in the local media, the following two short videos explain how groynes interrupt longshore drift creating or maintaining wide beaches on one side but eroding and destroying those on the other side. In 2006 three massive rock groynes (clearly seen above) were built in Road View with the blessing and approval of our local CZMU (Coastal Zone Management Unit). Since then the beach immediately to the south at the back of the abandoned Kings Beach has almost totally disappeared. Next to it to the south, The Great House At Turtle Beach in 2009 was reported in the media spending US$250K on a seawall and rock revetment to shore-up its property (again with CZMU blessing). The contractor who worked on the Great House project also dropped boulders along the beach in haphazard manner (hoping and skipping some properties) under CZMU supervision. The beach in this area is now so eroded that it is impossible to walk except perhaps at low tide. Mullins Beach also (further south of the groynes) has seen significant narrowing to the point where last winter's tourist season was severely impacted. Unless there is urgent human intervention this stretch of coastline will be lost - with all the social, economic, environmental and ecological implications that portends.

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Longtime UK Repeat Visitors To Mullins Bay Ask: “how can something like this be allowed to happen?”

2011-08-07T01:11:00.000-04:00

Although topics on this blog do not generate a lot of comments (not that I would not like that), from time to time readers do email their observations, criticisms and other responses, some of which have been posted here in the past. Recently, I received such an email that has caught my eye as it captures the spirit behind the activism of this blog. I have sought and received the writer’s permission to re-post it here to give it a wider audience.

from peter goddard xxxxx
to savemullinsbay@gmail.com
date Tue, Aug 2, 2011 at 3:24 PM
subject beach
Hi
I thought I would drop you a line just to offer our 100% backing with regards to your save our Mullins campaign.

We have been visiting Barbados since 1990 and have visited your Island over 30 times, over the past 5 years the devestation of Mullins beach is absolutley a crime.

We are not rich people or millonaires, we are both working all year to save up to come to the place we call our second home, we rent a small house in the Road View area and spend all day every day of our holiday on Mullins beach, we are very good friends with a family on Road View and feel ashamed sometimes to hear of the foreigners buying all and sundry on Barbados, with no regard for the local people or the environment.

What can be done to stop Mullins disappearing altogether? On our last visit in Dec 2010 the beach actually did disappear, we have been told by our friends that the beach has come back a little bit, we will see when we come over this December.

It also disturbs us when the sea is rough and the beach is at a minimum, just a little sand left in front of the bar, but the whole beach is taken with Sunchairs for Westmoreland clients, which 9 times out of 10 don't have anyone sitting on them, discusting, it is complete disregard for everyone else either local or visiting. I was thinking of writing a letter to the Barbados Tourist Board to voice my complaints about the state the beach is in.

We have video footage of Mullins from our first visit to Barbados in 1990, you would not even know it was the same place, it is a crying shame and upsets us very much, how can something like this be allowed to happen?

Anyway we have completed the online survey and wish you well with your campaign.

Best Regards
Pete and Jan Goddard.

Save The Turtles

2011-08-03T04:14:00.002-04:00

Selling Our Birthright For A Mess Of Pottage

2011-07-31T23:43:00.000-04:00

After

Now that they have demolished "The Palace" - the old Road View landmark - to make way for some foreigner's idea of a tropical beachfront paradise, one of our main concerns has been what kind of sea defense would be built and will it help or hinder beach access. A walk by the construction site revealed that they have busted out the old seawall, pulled out the old tamarind tree, and appear to be building much closer to the water than previously existed. As you can see from the mossy rocks left by the low tide this would leave no room to walk along the beach between Mullins Beach and points north. And, this is a very sensitive area that has seen severe erosion even before the cursed groynes. If this doesn't qualify as one of the structures that can cause the "catastrophic results" the CZMU warned of just over a year and a half ago, it should.

Before

As is always the case with this builder in Road View, there is the usual lack of transparency, and the community being kept totally in the dark about what is really going on. For a while we thought they were keeping and/or just remodeling the old building until one day - boom - they brought in the bulldozer and tore the whole thing down. Local people who have wanted to tear down and rebuild in this area have been told in the past that it is too close to the road and the sea so they can only repair or move. How does a foreigner get permission to practically build in the water is stunning to say the least. When is this country going to stop selling its birthright for "a mess of [foreign exchange] pottage?"

SOS From Rihanna's Homeland Barbados

2011-07-11T19:52:00.001-04:00

No, this is not a clever ploy to get free tickets for Rihanna's big show in Barbados next month. It's a genuine SOS - Save Our Shoreline call for the beaches in the Mullins Bay area of Barbados that are rapidly disappearing owing to erosion. We need all the help we can get and your quick response is critical. Here is what to do:

1. Click here to sign-up to the Save Mullins Bay cause.

2. Click here to take our brief survey.

3. Click here to resize and add our SOS - Save Our Shoreline badge to your Facebook and Twitter profile pictures to show your solidarity with us and to spread awareness of our cause.

The Fine Print
If you do have a ticket to Rihanna's big show in Barbados next month, consider donating it to the cause to be offered as a prize to the person who wins the most recruits for the cause. Email the cause at savemullinsbay@gmail.com to set this up.

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One day you wake up and it dawns on you that the beach is all gone...

2011-07-06T21:33:00.001-04:00

Late yesterday evening I was having a seabath with three of my neighbours and reflecting on having to witness in the last few years the demise the beach on which we grew up. It was our playground as kids which we shared with visitors to the island who traversed it back and forth between Mullins Beach and the resorts and guesthouses in the area. Now just two years after the seawall and rock revetment pictured above was built (largely in response to the infamous groynes around the corner) this is what's left of our beloved Upper Road View Beach/Turtle Beach in the Mullins Bay area of St. Peter, Barbados.

The drama of it all hit home for this blogger after observing nine young men from Lower Road View try to reach home along the beach from Mullins Beach having to clamber over rocks, over the deck pictured and across the seawall in order to make it to their destination. I am sure the property owners of this US$8K/night beachfront villa would not have be happy to see this, nor would their guests, but this is what you get when you build your seawall on the high-water mark. They probably should have thought about that when with the blessing of our Coastal Zone Management Unit they were reportedly spending US$1/4M to drive steel pilings 20 feet into the beach to build this wall and calling it "temporary."

Another instance where the CZMU and this property owner were less than forthright with us was their public announcement that they were going to be laying boulders along the entire beach to protect the properties in the area. Well, you can see where the boulders ended in this second photo. No, the coconut tree the of stump you see sticking out of the sand on the beach behind an immediate neighbour's property did not die there - it was part of the debris deposited there by the seawall builders - some protection, huh? Then they completely skipped the next property below, and called the media for a photo op laying a few boulders (as a "personal favour" - according to someone who lives there) at the next property. Ironically, the two properties which received short shrift are currently the only spots along this stretch of beach where you can put out a beach chair on sand at low tide; but we know the nearby groynes, seawall and rocks will soon put an end to that also.

Continuing south from the seawall boulders were placed next (see photo below) in front of the property which was used to access the beach with heavy equipment. They then proceeded to skip the next four properties and had a very public row with the owner of the fifth before allowing the placing of a few boulders there.

As soon as the seawall and rock revetment was in place the management of the property they protected seemed to suddenly lose all interest restoring the beach in the area, not to mention getting rid of the groynes to which they were pointing as the cause of their troubles - who needs a sandy beach when you have a large swimming pool behind a protected fence and a powerboat on the ocean... I suppose. I certainly hope the CZMU is proud of the outcome here because they were publicly very loudly boasting of their oversight and supervision when the seawall and the rock revetment were under construction. I hope too that this poor coastal management is history before Mullins Beach itself (seen in the background of the last photo) is similarly swallowed up by the ocean.

See also: Why is The Great House at Turtle Beach ...

Size Matters

2011-06-28T19:10:00.005-04:00

By popular request our membership challenge has been extended and expanded. The new goal is a membership of 250 by midnight Friday, July 1, 2011. Yes, the sad truth is that size really does matter especially when we are raising awareness of environmental, ecological, economic and social concerns, and challenging the-powers-that-be to provide solutions. If you have not done so already, now is your big opportunity to join the Save Mullins Bay cause during our first big membership challenge. By now you have probably heard of or seen the power of social media at work to effect change, from the frivolous flash mobs to the seismic societal, political and economic shifts now rocking the Arab World. It is this same power we want to tap into in order bring about the changes we seek for the restoration of the Mullins Bay area beaches. Hence, numbers are important, and the reason for this membership challenge.

click top portion to enlarge

Here is what to do to take part in our membership challenge:

(1) Sign up with Facebook if you have not done so already.

(2) Join the Save Mullins Bay Cause if you have not done so already.

(3) Click on the green “Invite Friends” button on the cause site to send invitations.

(4) If you don't care to join Facebook but have friends who use it, click on the "Share" button or the "Envelope" icon below to email them this post along with the following message:

Dear Friend,

I am a supporter of the Save Mullins Bay Cause - a local and online grassroots effort with the singular purpose of rolling back the environmental, ecological, social and economic destruction of the Mullins Bay area and beyond in Barbados through actualizing the full restoration of area beaches. I am inviting you to join this cause by visiting http://www.causes.com/SaveMullinsBay today.

Thanks
[insert your name]

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Trap Bags May Be Another Temporary Solution To Beach Erosion In Mullins Bay

2011-06-24T02:13:00.001-04:00

Visit TrapBag

See also: Save Mullins Bay Resources

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Innovators, Imitators, and Idiots In Road View

2011-06-05T03:28:00.002-04:00

Warren Buffet, the Oracle Of Omaha, and the #2 or #3 wealthiest man in the world, must have had the rumshop/grill entrepreneurs in Road View in mind when he came up with his brilliant gem on the natural progression to idiocy in the marketplace. I have lost count of the failures in the last few years on the site pictured above, but tomorrow (according to the chalkboard out front last week) yet another intrepid capitalist is opening yet another bar and grill here. Bizarrely, this time the merchant has chosen the prophetic name: "Temptation Bar & Grill."

A few years ago somebody got the brilliant idea of combining food and alcohol and the roadside bar and grill was born. They started popping up all over the island as if Barbados did not have enough rumshops already. Some were/are in substantial buildings but others were/are housed in such flimsy quarters with tarps and sticks that you have to wonder how they secured the liquor license in the first place. All of a sudden it became the surefire way to become a millionaire in Barbados outside of winning the lottery, or so some seem to believe. Everybody was/is jumping on the wagon, and predictably just as fast, the vast majority were/are falling off the wagon. But a little thing like the hoards falling off the wagon doesn't seem to be deterring others from taking the jump.

Here is where Warren Buffet's inspired counsel helps us to understand this lemming-like behavior. He called it "the progression of the "three I's." First come the innovators, who see opportunities that others don't. Then come the imitators, who copy what the innovators have done. And then come the idiots, whose avarice undoes the very innovations they are trying to use to get rich. The problem, in other words, isn't with innovation -- it's with the idiocy that follows." Too bad some of us are going to have to put up with the late-night noise for a while before the new "I..." falls off the wagon.

Whistling Dixie On Mullins Beach

2011-05-27T08:32:00.000-04:00

Mullins Beach 05/26/11 circa noon (click top portion of image to enlarge)

If you buy into the official Government line, everything is coming up roses for Barbados tourism. However, if you visited Mullins Beach yesterday around noon and/or talked to the vendors and watersports operators there you get a totally different picture altogether. I know we are already a month and a half past the official end of the high season but the picture above is one we only normally see in September when the beach bar takes advantage of the doldrums to close down and spruce up for the coming winter high season. One chair vendor didn't even show up yesterday as well as several of the jet ski operators. One lunch vendor ventured that things have been so bad all year so far that customers having been begging for discounts.

Ironically, this bad economic turn in the area comes at a time when the beach itself, at least closest to the beach bar, is in its best shape since the beginning of the year when three rounds had to be added at the bottom of the stairs just to reach the sand. However, just to the south bordering Gibbses Beach remains very eroded making it quite a challenge to walk between the two beaches especially at high tide. Government needs to stop whistling Dixie and address the real issues facing tourism in the area before it's too late and/or too expensive to do so.

See also: Visitors Up

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Why did the Gospel Chicken NOT cross the road?

2011-05-26T06:42:00.001-04:00

So, last night was fairly hot inside so I thought I would go sit outside on my front steps for a while before retiring. I am glad Road View is still largely a place where you can sit on your front steps at night and not be too concerned about your safety. It is true that we have had an uptick in drug activity on land and sea in the area lately, some of which accompanied by gun-play, but nothing like Mexico or inner-city America. Besides, I was sitting next to a church “in session” - so what could possibly go wrong where angels wings were winnowing in the air...

I have to say though that observing the saints next door is a constant source of entertainment, and not just because of their loud cacophonous music since they switched their liturgical style to the ubiquitous Contemporary/Praise/Worship format a few years ago. These people are funny as ~~hell~~, oops, heck, and never cease to amaze. Keep in mind that I am not mocking anyone’s faith here. As a child I grew up in this church and still affirm that experience as an important part of my religious heritage. So what happened last night that was so funny?

Well, as I was sitting there on my front steps pretty much not in tune with what was going on in the church (last night was a quiet night or something) one of my neighbours who was heading home came by and leaned over my gate and we chatted for a while. As it was now well after 9:00 PM the service or meeting came to an end and the small gathering started leaving. Now my back was kind of towards the church so I couldn't really see what was going on, but my neighbour could, and he began talking about how wicked churchgoers were and why he would not be numbered among them. I began protesting that a church, as in any group of people, you will find a few rotten apples but my experience was that by and large the majority of churchgoers I know are good people. Then he explained what he had just witnessed.

Apparently, one of the members of the church was waiting in the parking lot across the street to pick up his wife after the service (church members with vehicles routinely use this parking lot - crossing the road back and forth). He asked her to cross the road to board the van but she refused. Two other women who were with her crossed the road and boarded the van. The wife’s refusal to cross the road so annoyed the husband that he pulled out of the parking lot, passed in front of her and drove off leaving her standing alone in front of the church by the bus stop. According to my neighbour, another motorist driving by and apparently recognizing the woman stopped and offered her a ride which she also refused. It was this latter act of refusal that pissed off my neighbour kindling his wrath against the church, and hastening the end of our conversation.

After my neighbour left I thought of turning in myself but changed my mind after recognizing that I was the only other human within the range of visibility of this ~~damsel~~, oops, woman in distress; also I was half curious to find out how this story would all end. Keep in mind that where this woman was standing in front of the church, as pictured below, about three years ago a car left the same parking lot which this woman’s husband just left and took out the church’s guardwall behind her.

About five minutes after my neighbour left the woman took off walking south on the right hand side of the road. She went about 200 yards and crossed the road, yes, I said crossed the road, and went into the service station. From my vantage point I could not tell what she did after she crossed the road but I suspect she went to make a phone call. Shortly thereafter I saw her walking back towards me and the church on the other (left hand) side of the road. When she got in front of the church she crossed the road again and stood by the bus stop and the church’s guardwall. Keep in mind, as pictured below, late one night about a year ago a drunk driver took out the guardwall, the bus stop and the bus shelter which up until then once stood on the site.

Well, we waited and waited for about half an hour and finally the woman’s husband came back and stopped on the left hand side of the road and invited her to come across the road and board the van. I was a few yards away and could not quite catch all of the conversation but he was practically begging her to cross the road and she was insisting that she was not crossing the road. The husband drove off again, but this time he pulled into the same service station his wife crossed the road twice in his absence to visit. He spent about enough time it would take to gas up the van and returned on the right hand side of the road and stopped by the bus stopped in front of the church. His wife opened the door, climbed in the van and they drove away. I still don’t know why the Gospel Chicken did not cross the road, but I am sure glad to report that no feathers are on the road this morning, at least not in Road View.

Tempers Flaring

2011-05-24T04:26:00.006-04:00

The NationNews is today reporting that "tempers flared" yesterday at a meeting between beach vendors and the National Conservation Commission and other [government] officials. Among other issues discussed, mention was made of "the beach chair vending policy – with a view to determining capacity on the beaches." At least in the online edition of the paper, no mention was made of narrowing beaches being a causal factor of the concerns so we are left to fill in the gaps ourselves.

In the NationNews photo linked above we see a Mullins Beach jet ski operator "having a word with Deputy Chief Environmental Health Officer." On January 3 of this year this blog also carried a photo [a section of which is blown up below] in which this same jet ski operator appears in his white floppy hat and checkered shorts (click top of photo to enlarge) in his working environment - Mullins Beach.

In this photo one can clearly see why capacity concerns over beach chairs is a big problem on narrowing west coast beaches, in particular Mullins Beach. The problem, in this blogger's humble opinion, isn't so much the number of chairs as it is little or no sandy beach on which to place them. For years this blog has been calling for the re-nourishment of the beaches in the Mullins area and the undoing of some of man-made causes of the accelerated erosion in the area like the groynes at St. Peter's Bay and the seawall at The Great House. Until these calls are answered the temper flaring on the part of those who work on the beach will only get worse and a silly little free government T-shirt is not going to cool things down.

Road View Landmark Meets The Bulldozer

2011-05-23T15:41:00.001-04:00

Click top portion of images to enlarge

It stood proudly for generations but not even its more than a foot thick coral stone walls were any match for the few hours it took a bulldozer operator to bring it to the ground. Yes, "Belair" aka "The Palace" was demolished today just over a month after what many thought was going to be only a renovation finally got on the way. Word on the street today is that the contractor didn't find any steel in the building so it had to be demolished. Who knew that current engineers, architects, and contractors in Barbados didn't know that coral stone buildings from the period when this house was built didn't have steel reinforcement? The whole things smacks of deception, and this blogger is guessing that the people who love old buildings aren't the only ones being tricked here. Overall, another sad day in Road View.

See also our post: The Palace Getting A Facelift

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7 Questions To Keep In Mind While Watching Mullins Bay Disappear

2011-05-20T02:06:00.003-04:00

QUESTION : Compared to the number of people who visit our state and national parks, how many people visit America’s coast?
a. About the same number
b. Half as many
c. Twice as many
ANSWER : More than twice as many people visit America’s coasts as visit our state and national parks — all of them, combined.
QUESTION : How much U.S. tourism-related revenue is generated in coastal states, where beaches are the leading tourist attraction?
a. 85%
b. 50%
c. 35%
ANSWER : About 85 percent of all tourism-related revenue in the U.S. is generated in coastal states — where beaches are the leading tourist attraction.
QUESTION : How much money does government receive in taxes generated by beach tourists for every dollar it spends on beach nourishment?
a. $25
b. $200
c. $320
ANSWER : Each year, government takes in $320 in taxes from beach tourists for every dollar it spends on beach nourishment.
QUESTION : It is estimated that the overall contribution of beaches to the American economy is
a. $320 billion
b. $200 billion
c. $100 billion
ANSWER : One economist's estimate puts the overall contribution of beaches to the American economy at more than $320 billion annually (in 2007 dollars).
QUESTION : Well over half of the nation’s gross domestic product ($7.9 trillion) is generated in 673 counties along the oceans and Great Lakes, according to NOAA’s National Ocean Economics Program. How many jobs does that result in?
a. 5 million jobs
b. 69 million jobs
c. 40 million jobs
ANSWER : That adds up to 69 million jobs and $3.4 trillion in wages. If U.S. coastal counties were a separate country, its economy would be second largest in the world.
QUESTION : True or false. With sea level slowly rising, and perhaps even accelerating, experts say regular beach nourishment and wider and higher beaches will be the answer for America’s ocean coast as far into the future as planners can plan.
ANSWER : True. In most cases sea level rise will be slow enough that beach nourishment can compensate.
QUESTION : Wider and higher beaches mean more abundant habitat and recreation for:
a. Birds
b. Turtles
c. People
ANSWER : All of the above. Wide beaches are great for sea turtle nesting, bird nesting and resting, and people recreating. That doesn’t even count that wider beaches make communities safer.

Source: http://www.asbpa.org/news/newsroom_11BN0510_beach_boosts_economy.htm

Would Errol Barrow Have Allowed The Destruction Kings Beach?

2011-04-29T02:24:00.002-04:00

So, here we are in the final moments of National Heroes Day 2011. Two of the blogs we follow in our sidebar here on the Mullins Bay Blog (Barbados Free Press and My Barbados Blog) carried posts in celebration of this important Barbados holiday so we didn't want our readers to feel left out, or to forget the fact that at least one of our National Heroes had a very strong connection to Road View/Mullins - specifically to the beach here that has recently borne the brunt of poor coastal management in the Mullins Bay area. Of course, that National Hero is Excellency Rt Hon Errol Walton Barrow who actually for many years in the 1960s owned or leased a beach house in Road View at what is now called Kings Beach adjoining the infamous groynes at what is now called St. Peter's Bay.

Our regular readers already know of this little known fact about Barbados' "Father of Independence" since it has been mentioned here several times over the years. However, we have never asked what Mr. Barrow himself would have thought about the man-made destruction of the beach to which he loved to resort, where most likely most of the transformational ideas were nurtured, if not birthed; ideas that have placed Barbados in the enviable position it enjoys today among the top three in social and economic development in the Americas.

How would he have graded his heirs and successors, some within his own party, who sat idly by and did nothing as the sand disappeared and coconut trees were unearthed and toppled at Kings Beach - accelerated by the groynes next door? What would he have thought about the "professionals" in the government agencies who, thanks to his "free education for all" initiatives, now sport PhDs and MScs, and who, depending on the day of the week and/or what adult beverage they may have had with breakfast, come up with different explanations for the rapidly accelerating erosion in the Mullins Bay area - except any for which they may be responsible?

One thing for sure - he could be silent. No, not the Errol Barrow who loved the coasts of Barbados and the ocean so much that his ashes are scattered there. His bones could have been in some mausoleum anywhere on Barbados, but even in death he chose to remind us about our stewardship of the ocean and our coastal areas. We honour him when we care for our coastal areas - starting with correcting our mistakes on his beloved beach in Mullins Bay.

Please help us Save Mullins Bay.

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If a tree falls on a beach ...

2011-04-18T08:03:00.000-04:00

Newly fallen coconut tree at The Great House/Kings Beach -
compare photo in last post - "Paradise Lost"

Another coconut tree came down yesterday on the beach in Road View/Mullins. "Well," you might ask, "why should we care? Don't trees fall on the beach all the time?" We can wax philosophical on these questions as indeed some have already done with the old riddle - "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" - which we can paraphrase here as - if a tree tree falls on a beach... Whether or not yesterday this tree made a sound, or splash for that matter, the larger question we should all be be concerned with is whether we should make a sound or splash about it.

If we are truly concerned about the erosion in the Mullins Bay area we should make a noise about it because it is yet another example of the fact that we are rapidly losing this beach, and if we continue on our current "do-nothing" path we can kiss goodbye to whatever we cherish about sandy beaches in this area. Frankly, I do not believe our local CZMU really cares about Mullins Bay and trees falling. If they did, they could not have approved the groynes at St. Peter's Bay five years ago nor this seawall at The Great House two years ago which have been nothing but bad news since they have been visited upon us.

We have seen in our area almost all of the negative effects of groynes and seawalls known universally within the last several years. The above video clearly demonstrates a few. The headland at The Great House/Kings Beach is now completely eroded and under water most of the time - goodbye long walks on a sandy beach. A strong backwash comes off this seawall which sometimes produces a strong rip current making this beach unsafe for swimming. And, this is just the beginning, if things are so bad now - just wait until one of those prolonged winter storms or, God forbid, a hurricane comes our way. This is why the loss of a single tree in our area is such a cataclysmic event and should be heard on every hilltop in Barbados and beyond.

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Paradise Lost

2011-04-13T12:26:00.001-04:00

If a picture is worth a thousand words, these two speak volumes about the destruction of the Mullins Bay area:

BEFORE

The beach at Road View, St. Peter adjoining Mullins Beach in the 1980s
(click in top portion of image to enlarge)

AFTER

Same beach yesterday after CZMU approved this $1/2M "temporary"sea wall
and rock revetment in 2009 (click in top portion of image to enlarge)

See also: Last-Chance Beaches

Click here to join the cause to Save Mullins Bay

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The Palace Getting A Facelift

2011-04-11T07:08:00.000-04:00

The Palace being prepped for renovation last week

The derelict landmark one storey, twin-gabled house opposite the service station in Upper Road View which came to be referred to as "The Palace" when it was used as a function center/residence in the 70s, 80s and '90s is finally getting a facelift. Work began last week in preparation for renovations which reportedly will turn it into an up-market luxury beachfront villa. It is among the three or four remaining coral stone buildings on the main road in Road View older than half a century. Many area residents are relieved that it is not being demolished entirely and will probably retain some of the characteristics of earlier times. It was last used exclusively as a residence in the early '70s when it was still called "Belair."

See also:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?id=1144407016&pid=2374756

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?id=1144407016&pid=1656976

http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=151741051510487&id=139744276057299

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Save Mullins Bay: The Cause

2011-04-07T21:32:00.001-04:00

Click here to learn more and join the cause.

Kings Beach Debushed

2011-04-02T21:15:00.005-04:00

So, they de-bushed the defunct Kings Beach Hotel property this week for the first time (as far as I know) since its closure several years ago. I know they are trying to sell the hotel (some say it's already sold) and a clean-up would certainly improve its curb appeal. However, it could, more importantly, have something to do with trying to clean up the area as a deterrence to the drug-landing activity that has been going on there. If that is the case, it hasn't worked as there was yet another shootout in the area early one morning this very week. Of course, there is no word of this in the lamestream media as that would impact visitor arrivals and hurt condo sales next door (not that they have been selling any condos at St. Peter's Bay lately). Yet it is this same hiding from the truth and the reality that will one day jump up and bite us all on the proverbial keister, as surely some innocent party (local or visiting) will be caught in the crossfire and pay the ultimate price.

There was at least one case last year (that this blogger is aware of) where drugs were successfully landed at Kings Beach in broad daylight, so bush or no bush, as long as Kings Beach remains in its dilapidated state drugs will be landed there. It is a shame that the scourge of illegal drugs have such a stranglehold in Barbados that this sort of thing is happening on our west coast beaches. De-bushing Kings Beach is not enough. Government needs to take a careful look at this escalating situation, and instead of pushing down buildings of historical and architectural interest around the country simply because they are old, Government needs to start leveling derelict beachfront hotel properties such as Kings Beach in the interest of public safety. It may be years again before anything is built at Kings Beach - that is too long to wait when currently residents in the area are being awakened in the middle of the night to the sound of automatic gunfire.

Flashback To The Old Whaling Days In Speightstown

2011-03-29T17:05:00.000-04:00

One of the jetties in Speightstown also used for landing whales as it appeared about a hundred years ago.

"They used to bring the whales in to the jetty and cut them up. The sharks were all around. The sharks came in to get the, what they call the blubber. Charles has the things to cut the blubber, to draw knives in. They said the people and sharks used to swim together. The sharks never attacked them or anything. People there used to say that the sharks ate the blubber and that etched their teeth out, and that way they won’t bite the people. They have their stories in all these things. But I started to tell you about the windmills, and they used to boil the sugar, the cane juice, in different stages. They would boil it in one long, big…and then they would shift it from one to the other. They used to call that crack liquor, and you could sit miles around and smell that. It had a beautiful smell. And they said that that is what used to attract the whales to Barbados. That’s why they all came along the west coast here. They say when they stopped working, the whales stopped coming. They didn’t get the smell, you know. It could be just a farce, you know, but that is what they said…My uncle had a lot of the harpoons, and he gave them all away to the fishermen. They used to go and harpoon the porpoises and everything. They didn’t know what to do with them, you know. Let me see if I can remember anything else. The whales are what they call the humpback whale..."

Read more: Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Diving with the whales

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No Big Surprise - Mullins Bay Out Of $60M Lucky Dip

2011-03-01T13:04:00.003-05:00

The unbelievable state of the beach at the defunct Kings Beach Hotel. See also http://on.fb.me/hbo47I

I usually have better things to do with my time, like Twitter and Facebook, than watching TV - let alone wasting it on the propaganda platform CBC TV has become. However, I happened to be passing through the living room last night when I overheard an announcer saying that the ~~Corruption Zone~~ Coastal Zone Management Unit would be talking about how they will be spending the BDS$60M recently secured from the Inter American Development Bank to address coastal concerns in Barbados. As I am obsessed with the restoration of the beaches in the Mullins Bay area I thought it might be prudent to stop and listen to what they had to say.

No big surprise here after all, and just as I have been hinting on this blog since word of this loan came to light last December, Mullins Bay restoration is not a priority with these people and thus will not be a beneficiary. According to the embroiled director of the CZMU, the money will be spent on extending the Holetown Boardwalk to Folkestone, tweaking their coastal modelling, and some nebulous-sounding projects (re: rat holes) in the Scotland District and Tent Bay. Who knew government was receiving a lot of applications for development projects on the East Coast? I thought that area was being reserved as a National Park free of the "condomania" that has gone on here on the west coast.

Even if we forget about CZMU's own promise to "investigate" the problem, to touch Road View/Mullins now would be a public admission that their approval of the groynes was a major blunder. That would be too bitter a pill for them to swollow given the ethical questions currently still swirling around them, and the fact that they continue to maintain that erosion in the area has been going on since Noah entered the Ark and that it is being compounded by Climate Change.

Also, we have to keep in mind that any honest and/or scientific attempt to rectify the problems of Road View/Mullins would of necessity require the removal of the groynes - something that would certainly upset the developer of the property involved who is also currently the only game in town vis-a-vis construction employment on the west coast if not also the rest of the island. So, I guess, at least for now, Mullins Bay continues to be between a rock and a hard place.

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Long Island, New York Lesson For Mullins Bay, Barbados

2011-02-14T14:47:00.003-05:00

Montauk, NY

Keeping in mind that jetties function as groynes this same scenario is playing out in Road View/Mullins while public officials are saying that the groynes at St. Peter's Bay have "NOT caused any more of an adverse effect than the renovation of the Bayfield area" - referring to a breakwater built in the 1950s on Mullins Beach. Sadly, these are the same people whose opinion will be sought when deciding how the US$30M recently procured from the Inter American Development Bank to address coastal erosion in Barbados is spent.

See also: JETTIES BLAMED FOR BEACH EROSION, MONTAUK NY

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A Little Video Lesson For The CZMU, Condo-developers & All Those Who Still Don't Get What The Issue With The Groynes In Road View/Mullins Is All About

2011-02-03T20:52:00.004-05:00

In the field with Simon Haslett, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Wales

St. Peter's Bay Admits Failure Of Groynes

2011-02-03T01:10:00.006-05:00

(click top portion of images to enlarge)

Three weeks ago the above photo of a portion of the beach between the groynes at St. Peter's Bay, Road View, St. Peter was posted on Facebook along with this question: "If the groynes are so effective in combating beach erosion then why is this fence being unearthed and toppled?" Well, it looks like we just got the answer from St. Peter's Bay. A visit to the same area yesterday found a work crew hastily shifting the fence inland several feet from where it was originally located. One could not wish for a clearer admission of the failure of the groynes at St. Peter's Bay than to witness this ignominious exercise.

Workmen beating the retreat from the beach

Keep in mind that the purpose of the groynes is to trap sand thereby stabilizing and/or widening the beach amenity for the enjoyment of owners and guests of the condo complex. This is still largely true north of the northernmost groyne but between the other groynes in the center of the property a disaster has unfolded forcing St. Peter's Bay to beat a retreat from the beach. This blogger, although a student of theology, is neither a prophet nor the son of one, but I do recall that nearly five years ago on witnessing the construction of these groynes, warning that this day would come. In the very first post here on these groynes this blogger wrote: "Groins are ugly, don't always do what they are supposed to do (trap sand), create obstacles to walking on the beach, and most importantly, contribute the destruction of beaches nearby." We are now witnessing the realization of all of these warnings and it will only get worse.

Last year one of the principals of St. Peter's Bay told a visiting Canadian journalist that people who opposed the groynes were "ignorant." Well, Mr. Big Developer, who's ignorant now?

This admission of the failure of the groynes should be cause for the ~~Corruption Zone~~ Coastal Zone Management Unit to investigate and start the process of getting rid of them before it is eternally too late and before much more damage is done in the area. Since these groynes were installed we have seen the total destruction of the beach behind the defunct Kings Beach Hotel, the Great House at Turtle Beach having to spend half million dollars to repair and shore-up their beachfront property, others in the area who don't have that kind of money to spend - tough! - have simply lost property and/or suffered severe damage, Mullins Restaurant on Mullins Beach has had to repair and replace property almost every year, visitors and locals can no longer walk the beach comfortably. How long must these atrocities be allowed to continue?

Meanwhile, also on our visit to the beach yesterday we again witnessed the pumping of dirty-looking water right on to the near-shore reef and into the ocean from St. Peter's Bay's sister development, The Palazzate's construction site. This has been going on sometimes day and night for nearly two years since construction started on this site. Who knows what chemical and/or other environmental and ecological hazards are in this water? Quite apart from whatever irreversible ecological damage this water may be having on the corals and the other sea creatures that live among them, as bad as and as irresponsible as that may be (a popular swim-with-the turtles site near Cobblers Cove Hotel is only yards away); keep in mind also that the groynes which are doing a poor job trapping sand have zero effect on trapping water. In other words - whatever construction-related hazards are in this water people (tourists and locals alike) are swimming in at Mullins Beach.

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Photos from Save Mullins Bay | Facebook

2011-01-28T10:37:00.004-05:00

Slippery rock hazard at West Point, Mullins Beach

Photos from Save Mullins Bay | Facebook

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Look what they've done to my beach, Ma!

2011-01-15T14:47:00.005-05:00

Click top portion of photo to enlarge

Click bottom portion of photo or on the button below to share this photo and help raise awareness of the destruction of our beaches in Barbados.

See also: Beaches Mean Business

Find some Facebook Comments here.

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'round here real [bleep]-up yuh

2011-01-03T03:35:00.005-05:00

Mullins Beach January 2, 2011 (click image to enlarge)

You probably didn't want me to quote the expletive anyhow but the above title of this post was borrowed verbatim from a Road View youth on seeing the beach at Mullins yesterday for the first time since recent persistent heavy northerly swells in the area have stripped the beach of most of its sand yet again. As you can see from the above photo, tourists escaping the frigid north had a tough time finding a spot to thaw out in the sun, and if they did find one - keeping themselves and their towels dry from the surf. Yes, Mullins Beach is in a total mess once again - and in the height of the tourist season as usual.

If Mullins looks like this, and it is supposedly one of the best beaches on the "Platinum Coast," you have to wonder what some of the others look like. But does it have to always be this way? We know for a fact that since last winter's erosion the ~~Corruption Zone~~ Coastal Zone Management Unit did absolutely nothing to protect and/or nourish beaches in the area. We also know for a fact that Mullins Beach is being robbed of natural nourishment by the groynes trapping sand to the north at what is now being called St. Peter's Bay. The upshot of all of this is that Mullins Beach is getting narrower and narrower so whenever we get these winter storms and swells, which have probably been going on for millennia, the beach gets washed out.

Last month we learned that Government has secured a US$30M loan from the Inter-American Development Bank to study and fix the problems of beach erosion in Barbados. It is not nearly enough given Mexico's spending US$80M to fix a 7-mile stretch of Cancun's beaches last year, but it's a start. Normally this should be cause for rejoicing but given the record of our local ~~Corruption Zone~~ Coastal Zone Management Unit into whose ~~rabbit hole~~ lap most of this money will be poured, and the slow pace at which Government moves, by the time they get around to doing anything about Mullins the beach bar will probably be on stilts in the ocean.

Several years ago Government secured $75M from the same IDB for a West Coast Sewage Project, an urgent necessity if we are going to save our reefs - let alone have bathe-able/swim-able beaches; but where has all that money gone? No one seems to know. We still have no sewage treatment on the west coast and we are building yet more multi-storey beachfront condos. Where is the IDB's oversight in all of this? Do they give a damn beyond ensuring the collecting of interest on these loans on the backs of poor Barbadians?

Indeed, "'round here real [bleep]-up yuh!"

Click here for more pictures of the damage at Mullins Beach.
See also: Beaches On The Brink

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Last 2010 Road View/Mullins Sunset

2010-12-31T22:06:00.000-05:00

Findings Causing Alarm

2010-12-01T10:37:00.001-05:00

"Rising sea levels caused by climate change are set to cause damage of billions of dollars to the islands states of the Caribbean by the middle of the century, including wiping out more than 300 premium tourist resorts, a remarkable new report suggested yesterday.

Airports, power plants, roads and agricultural land in low-lying areas, as well as prime tourist locations on islands from Bermuda to Barbados, and from St Kitts and Nevis to St Vincent and the Grenadines, will be all be lost or severely damaged, with dire implications for national economies and for the welfare of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people, according to the report..."

A Pristine Protected Wonder

2010-11-19T07:52:00.005-05:00

Click here to visit St. Peter's Bay.

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Where's The Brief?

2010-11-12T06:50:00.001-05:00

St. Peter's Bay - "A pristine protected wonder" - (don't laugh - click image to enlarge)

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the Coastal Zone Management Unit's Friday, 13th Statement promising an investigation into finding "a solution to erosion at Road View/Mullins Bay in St. Peter..." That promise was carried on the front page of the government's favorite newspaper, The Barbados Advocate, so one guessed they were probably serious even though intentionally or unintentionally they chose to make it public on a traditionally bad luck day. One would think that by now after a whole year there would be some kind of statement or briefing or progress report or something coming out of the CZMU about what they have done and/or what they are doing in this regard. So, in the immortal words of MaryJane Temple we ask: WHERE'S THE ~~BEEF~~ BRIEF?

See also:

Mullins Bay Blog Welcomes CZMU's Friday The 13th Statement

St. Peter's Bay advertising their beach as "a pristine protected wonder"

In & Around Road View/Mullins With Tropical Storm Tomas

2010-11-02T18:19:00.001-04:00

Click here for more storm pics.
Join the storm conversation here.

The Battle Against Beach Hardening - Not Just A Mullins Bay Issue

2010-10-19T14:13:00.000-04:00

In 4 years the groynes and rock revetment at St. Peter's Bay have devastated beaches to the south, damaged private property, and consigned continuous beach access in the Mullins Bay area to history

"After decades of observation, the situation is clear.

Sea walls and rock jetties accelerate beach erosion.

North Carolina law prohibits the use of groins – steel, rock or wood walls built perpendicular to the beach in order to trap shifting sand – and other permanent erosion control structures along ocean shorelines.

This North Carolina law is progressive with regard to the United States and the world and was implemented in 1995 thanks to coastal scientists in the state, but the ban is threatened frequently. Each year, the ban is attempted to be overturned by politicians catering to special interest groups – wealthy home owners and private communities.

Overturning the ban would be a major step backwards in the fight for natural beaches, public access to beaches, and ensuring what is best for the future of the beaches of North Carolina. People living in areas experiencing erosion sometimes think that the use of hardened beach structures at their beach is justified. But why is their beach more important than the beaches that will erode as a result of the hardened beach structures?

The ban is based on:

1. Extensive studies and technical data documenting the detrimental impacts of erosion control structures and;
2. 150 years of documentation of the negative impacts of shoreline stabilization on the barrier islands in New Jersey.

The data are clear: when hardened beach structures are used, accelerated erosion is the result..."

Read more: PETITION ON HARDENED BEACH STRUCTURES

Waves crashing against the half million dollar "temporary" (according to CZMU) seawall and rock revetment built last year at The Great House at Turtle Beach in response to accelerated erosion influenced by the groynes around the bend

The Emperor's New Clothes: A response to Dr. Lorna Inniss

2010-09-29T14:46:00.004-04:00

One of the three offending groynes in Road View/Mullins as it appeared yesterday

"Inniss said while her agency did not engage in back and forth arguments about the coastline, given the expertise that was required to fully understand the issues involved, she said though that she was confident in the skills of the engineers within the department.

"The West Coast requires a significant amount of expertise which goes beyond the opinions and ideas one would get from just looking at a beach. You cannot look at a beach and determine that you know what is happening, that is why we have engineers who we call on and use," said Inniss.

She said the problem of erosion was not just one that suddenly sprung up: "From the 1960s there has been an obvious erosion trend on the West Coast that we would have seen from photos, from our models and other works on the coast.

"To blame any new construction is in my view quite short sighted." ...Barbados Today 09/28/10

There you have it folks, according to the CZMU's Dr. Lorna Inniss, we are all just plain too dumb to look at the beach and figure out what might be going on with it. I guess we always knew that the CZMU regarded us with such contempt and condescension, but we never thought they would actually put it in writing. Why does this all suddenly remind me of the Hans Christian Andersen story I read in primary school - "The Emperor's New Clothes?" In case readers of this blog have also forgotten the story - it was about two weavers who promised an Emperor a new suit of clothes invisible to those unfit for their positions or incompetent. When the Emperor paraded before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cried out: "But he isn't wearing anything at all!"

Just for the record, let me restate that at least three coastal engineers (one local and two foreign - all with more coastal engineering experience than Dr. Inniss/Dr. Brewster and their team) have looked at the problem in Road View/Mullins and have concluded that the groynes at St. Peter's Bay have contributed to beach erosion in the area. So we are not just going on "look[ing] at a beach and determin[ing] that [we] know what is happening" as Dr. Inniss sarcastically characterized it.

The time has now come for Dr. Inniss and her cohorts at the CZMU to put up or shut up. If they have exhaustive scientific studies on which they based their approval of the groynes at Road View, we are calling for them to be made public. One of the central grievances in this whole fiasco is that it has been widely bandied about that no such studies exist. As a matter of fact, we know that one of the central figures in the development boasted to a visiting journalist this year that such studies were not needed. There is a lot of other anecdotal evidence corroborating this allegation, besides, CZMU's own promising last November to now do the very same research which should have been done before the groynes went in.

So, Dr. Inniss' trotting out CZMU's expertise and skill is meaningless if it were never utilized in the first place. We want to see the scientific research and engineering skill so that others more qualified than we are can evaluate it and determine whether or not the groynes are exacerbating the beach erosion problem in Road View/Mullins. We want to see The Emperor's New Clothes!

Turtle Beach A Turtle Mess

2010-09-18T23:13:00.008-04:00

Turtle nest being washed out by Igor's waves (click image to enlarge)

Some have called it Turtle Beach since "The Great House at Turtle Beach" was built in Road View back in the 1980s. However, it has been a prime nesting ground for sea turtles for eons - until the groynes constructed in 2006 at St. Peter's Bay a few hundred yards to the north, and the sea wall constructed last year at the Great House itself decimated it. Only a few yards of sandy beach remain of a stretch that once spanned the area between Mullins Beach and the defunct Kings Beach Hotel.

The turtles have been stressed to the max finding suitable spots to lay their eggs this nesting season as highlighted by a near fatal incident reported here a few weeks ago. Today saw the realization of our worse fears for the nests which were only days from hatching. Persistent waves for the last week kicked up by hurricanes Igor and Julia more than a thousand miles away finally unearthed and washed out several nests in what is now for all intents and purposes Turtle "Cove." As pictured above (click here or see below for more pictures), the 2010 turtle nesting season in Road View is now a disaster.

The hardest part to bear about this catastrophe is that in spite of the despicable groynes and sea wall, this latest incident was still entirely avoidable. As noted on another forum, in the weeks prior to this several calls were made to the Barbados Turtle Project requesting that they come and collect the eggs owing to the fragile nature of the beach. For reasons completely unknown to this blogger they never came and the eggs were never collected. Thanks to the CZMU approved (some may also say "designed") groynes the stretch of "beach" between Mullins Beach and Kings Beach is now useless to both man and beast. For goodness sakes, even if we forget about tourism, what has become of the legislation to protect endangered sea turtles? Is that also a practical joke?

See also: Turtle Butchered

Igor And Julia

2010-09-16T22:13:00.000-04:00

East Moon Chinese Restaurant Closed

2010-09-02T09:31:00.000-04:00

East Moon under roof repairs Spring '08

East Moon Chinese Restaurant which has been a landmark in "Upper" Road View for many years closed its doors at the end of last month (August '10). However, they will soon be re-opening those doors in "Lower" Road View - if you draw the border between Upper and Lower at the canal between the abandoned Kings Beach Hotel and The Great House. As a sign of the current economic times the Chinese Restaurant which enjoys very favorable reviews could no longer afford the $8K/month rent (word on the street). The building is still owned by the doctor who previously occupied it for his medical practice.

New home of East Moon Chinese Restaurant & Bar

East Moon is moving to the building across from the abandoned Kings Beach previously occupied by the defunct Chattel House Bar & Grill. We want to wish East Moon every success in its new location, but it must be noted that it is smaller than the old location and it comes with much less parking which will definitely impact both their takeout and dining room businesses. On a positive note, it will be much closer to the two newest and largest tourism developments in Road View - the completed St. Peter's Bay condos and the ultra-luxury Palazzate under-construction on the old Sandridge Hotel site. Of course, that's if those condos ever get sold and, more importantly, get occupied.

Talking about the Palazzate, they hung out their shingle for the first time yesterday. Yes, after more than a year of mystery and people wondering about what was going up on the old Sandridge Hotel site, the word "Palazzate" was finally emblazoned on the construction curtain fence yesterday. Keep in mind the Palazzate developers are the same people who dug up and plowed over the swamp in Retreat/Six Mens for half of a year before there was an official ground breaking.

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Conde Nast Traveler's Concierge.com Highlights Plight Of Mullins Bay Area

2010-08-25T14:17:00.001-04:00

For the last four years this blog has been the proverbial voice crying in the wilderness calling attention to the environmental, social and economic disaster that has befallen the Road View/Mullins area as a result of ongoing beach erosion. Those cries have largely fallen on death ears in Bridgetown, apathy on the part of most Barbadians, and intimidation and victimization from a small but powerful few. Truth be told, many times this blogger was tempted to throw in the towel, but it was always a sense of the truthfulness, righteousness and justice of the cause, and the calling - if not me, who? - that strengthened and sustained even in the darkest hours. Today that struggle and sacrifice are validated by Conde Nast Traveler's (one of the largest and most trusted travel publishers in the world) selecting and highlighting Mullins Bay, Barbados as one of their seven "beach destinations around the world in danger of disappearing forever due to forces such aserosion, pollution, rising sea levels,reckless overdevelopment, and sand mining. "

It represents not just the power of the Internet to give a voice to the voiceless, but also the efficacy and validation of blogging as a tool to bring about social, economic and environmental change. That change is still a future goal, but this Conde Nast posting is reassuring us that day cannot be far away. This is not the first time Conde Nast has highlighted the destruction of the west coast of Barbados, so the question has to be - how long can the powers that be continue to ignore them and others calling attention to the problems and hope to maintain a competitive tourism economy in Barbados?

High Turtle Drama In Road View Last Night

2010-08-22T08:07:00.003-04:00

"‘Tis the season for turtle nesting, which starts June and ends September.

On average, an adult female will nest every two to four years, laying eggs three to five times per season. Studies have shown that she will nest on or near the same beach where she was born 20 to 30 years earlier.

The hawksbill turtle prefers to nest at night near or in natural beach vegetation in dry sand well above the high-water mark..."

The above photo and quotation were borrowed from a NationNews.com article titled "Keeping turtles safe" which ran back in June around the starting of the current turtles nesting season. It reminded readers of what to expect over the season and of what are they responsibilities. However, it made no mention of what could happen in areas like ours here in Road View/Mullins where beaches have been destroyed by un-turtle-friendly tourism development projects. Click on the link below to read about such an incident which recently occurred in our area.

Barbados TravelAdvisor - View topic - High Turtle Drama In Road View Last Night

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If It's To Be, It's Up To Me

2010-08-06T18:43:00.162-04:00

Click images to enlarge

Not blowing my own trumpet, looking for any Brownie Points or to be declared a National Hero or anything like that, but today I picked up a 50-gallon bag's worth of trash off Mullins Beach. I simply got tired of seeing the trash piling up day after day, week after week, month after month and no one picking it up. Besides, it was strewn all over an area I love to sit, eat my lunch, and take in the beach scene at Mullins. I made sure I removed my own trash when I left each time, but apparently that was not enough of an example for others to follow. It was now beginning to reflect on me. What kind of person would want to sit down in a pile of trash to eat his lunch?

Government certainly wasn't going to do anything about it - they abandoned beach-cleaning donkey's years ago when they got rid of the Parks and Beaches Commission. For a country with a viable tourism industry Barbados certainly gets away with a lot of worthlessness - or so the powers that be apparently hope can continue. We see it also in their attitude toward beach erosion and the sorry state we find on west coast beaches which have become nothing but piles of rocks. When I vacationed in Ft. Lauderdale just north of Miami in Florida bright and early every morning The City of Ft. Lauderdale was raking and cleaning the beach, and every year after the hurricane season they were nourishing the beach with trucked-in sand. That is the difference between a government that is serious about tourism and one like ours that's just playing the ~~fool~~ field.

The owner of the land certainly was not going to do it because I watched as they sent a crew to trim the casuarina tree and cut down what was left of the coconut tree killed by the exposure of its roots in the storms last winter, but sent no one to pick up the trash even though it's the first thing that greets visitors entering the beach from the north. What ever happened to the notion of first impressions? Royal Westmoreland is a special case - it is only focused on the stretch of beach immediately in front of the beach bar. After all you don't need to worry about beach erosion preventing visitors from walking and exploring the area if you can keep their backsides on plush sunbed cushions while stuffing your coffers feeding them umbrella drinks.

The beach bums, vendors and watersports operators weren't going to pick up the trash because, truth be told, they are the chief offenders. Just before the current Crop Over influx of visitors to the beach things were getting so desperate that they were resorting to pooling they meager earnings to roast breadfruits on the beach for lunch. After lunch they just walked off and left the site a mess with their rum bottles, plastic cups, plastic bags, paper, fire-pits, etc. Even they are now too "great" to clean after themselves.

So, if it's to be it's up to me. It didn't take anything off me to spend five minutes picking up the area around which I love to sit. As I have said before on this blog, I was born just across the street from this spot. In the immortal words of Mighty Gabby - "my navel string bury right hey." It hurts my heart to see people trashing the beach and it breaks it to see others destroying it with boulders and groynes. And so my little act today in picking up the trash is symbolic of a larger commitment to seeing the ultimate restoration of the beaches in the Mullins Bay area, and this blog is my invitation to others to join in the process, for ultimately it isn't about me, it's about us.
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New Trinidad & Tobago Government Responding To Erosion Concerns

2010-07-20T20:34:00.001-04:00

"That they are currently fighting a local government election campaign aside, it is heartening to see the ministers in the new T&T Government on the ground listening to the concerns of locals about beach erosion. It has been over a year since the last dramatic bout of beach erosion in Road View/Mullins, Barbados and we are still waiting for the promised showing from the Minister of the Environment. Perhaps our local government (Constituency Councils) should have been elected after all - given the T&T example here..."

Read more: New Trinidad & Tobago Government Responding To Erosion Concerns

Mullins Beach Welcomes The Rooneys

2010-07-08T09:08:00.003-04:00

"He's only eight months old, but Kai Rooney is currently enjoying his second luxury holiday in Barbados with parents Wayne and Coleen.

The couple, who own a £5million holiday home in Barbados, decided to take a vacation to the holiday island following England's now infamous exit from the World Cup.

But it seems the disappointment over England's defeat is now just a distant memory, as both Wayne and Coleen looked happy and relaxed while they spent time with their baby son..."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1292673/Wayne-Coleen-Rooney-hide-love-son-Kai-enjoy-family-holiday-Barbados.html#ixzz0t5yw31aU

Click here to help save Mullins Bay.

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NationNews.com Runs Another Infomercial For St. Peter's Bay

2010-07-01T03:36:00.001-04:00

About a week ago our friends at "Road View Amped" posted about the empty houses on St. Peter's Avenue, and lo and behold, this week the NationNews.com which has been ignoring this story since last year suddenly got religion or something and came out with what can only be meant as a reply, apparently commissioned by St. Peter's Bay. I said "apparently" because I am having a hard time believing that my good friends at The Nation would write such piffle on their own accord, and we do know that the PR people at St. Peter's Bay read our blog and have posted comments here. The piece itself, entitled "Ongoing Transaction," was more interesting from the point of view of what it didn't say rather than for what little it did say:

"MORE church lands are either being put into commercial development by the clergy or bought by developers for high-end property development.
This 57-condominium project – Saint Peter’s Bay Barbados, funded by Jada Builders’ boss Bjorn Bjerkhamn and an American partner – went on sale in January. It sits on four acres of beachfront land at Road View, St Peter, adjacent to a 15 000 square foot tract owned by the Methodist Church in Barbados.
Project manager Betty Cathrow said the Methodists’ property is the subject of an ongoing purchase transaction between the church and Jada Builders for future development."

No mention is made of the five living and breathing families which are being uprooted and tossed out of the way so that million-dollar homes-away-from-home can be created for the idle, foreign super-rich. As far as The Nation, the Methodist Church and Jada are concerned, these nameless, faceless souls are but bit-players, mere objects in an "ongoing purchase transaction" between the Methodist Church and the developers of St. Peter's Bay. I suppose when you reduce people in this way it makes it easier to get rid of them.

When was the last time in our history where money, religion and power joined hands in such a diabolical union of objectification and marginalization? Oh yes, how can we ever forget? It was 175 years ago when our forefathers and foremothers were slaves on the plantation, numbers on a balance sheet, and soul-less demons to be subjugated. That this is happening again in Barbados (which, by the way, still prides itself as one of the more enlightened post-colonial nations in the world) In The Year Of Our Lord 2010 and nobody, not first, not second, not third, not fourth nor fifth estate, is saying anything about it - is simply a-m-a-z-i-n-g to behold and read about on the Internet.

Road View To Speightstown & Back – Beach-Way

2010-06-28T11:26:00.004-04:00

So, yesterday morning I decided to take advantage of the low tide to get in my 10,000 steps for the day with a walk along the beach from Road View to Speightstown and back. I have to emphasize that this is now only possible (without a sea bath) at low tide since the construction of the three rock groynes in Lower Road View (approved and protected by the Coastal Zone Management Unit)at what is now called St. Peter's Bay. Also, I have to add that this walk is becoming increasingly difficult even at low tide. I observed yesterday two visitors having to turn around in the vicinity of the Junkanoo beach cottage in Road View because of all the rocks impeding their path to Mullins Beach. I was going north in the opposite direction and hoping for better luck rounding the corner between The Great House and the old abandoned Kings Beach Hotel.
I was pleasantly surprised to see about half dozen visitors to the island sea-bathing between the middle and southernmost of the three groynes and thought they were staying at the condos at St. Peter’s Bay after noticing that the black ceiling fans (all the others in the complex are white) on the balcony of one of the apartments were on. I was later disabused of that notion when I noticed the visitors heading for Leamington beach villa next door as I was photographing (as pictured below) the formidable curtain fence being built to shield from public view The Palazzate currently under construction between Leamington and St. Peter’s Bay.

For all its pronouncements about building seawalls and villas on the beach too close to the water, and the firestorm in Road View over the groynes, I continue to be amazed that this seawall built right on the high watermark upon which they are hanging this temporary curtain fence has also been apparently “approved” by the Coastal Zone Management Unit and Town Planning. That mystery is only heightened by this new fence on the beach. What does The Palazzate have to hide behind this new fence? Who knew you could buy Permclad galvanized sheeting that ~~tall~~, oops, long, anyway? Could it have something to do with the fact that The Palazzate is going up so close to the water? So close that (as pictured below) they have to be pumping the construction site of seawater 24/7. The former Sandridge Hotel site like St. Peter’s Bay next door is a former mangrove area, and St. Peter’s Bay isn’t built on a “floating foundation” and we have not been saddled with the groynes for nothing, you know.

Moving on up the beach I ran into yet more recent beachworks which are also having a deleterious effect on area beaches. This time it’s the massive rock revetment and offshore breakwater (pictured below) built by Cobblers Cove Hotel reportedly to prevent diners at their “beachfront” restaurant being splashed by the waves.

These are pictures you will never see in any tourist brochure or Internet website promoting Cobblers Cove, so the question is why do hoteliers do stuff like this? The once picturesque and sandy Godings Bay has noticeably narrowed since these rockworks, and assessability to it from the hotel is now sometimes only possible at low tide. Did it never occur to these people that they could have used sand instead of ugly rock piles to replenish what years of storms and neglect had wrought by way of beach erosion? If tourism (and, therefore, good beaches) is so vital to our economy, why is government allowing all of this destruction along our coasts?
Talking about government, their record is not much different in Speightstown with the second “so-called” boardwalk secretly being built by Barbados Tourism Investment. As pictured below and elsewhere on this blog, it is truly a “boardwalk” from nowhere to nowhere.

There was once a popular sandy beach here which could have been restored where the swimmer and fisherman with the blue net over his shoulder now eek out a seabath and a living. Instead, we now have yet another massive rock pile on the beach with a narrow footpath on top; and one property owner has already put up a new chain link fence to ensure that you can only walk in single file or one-way. There is no beach left even at low tide (when these photos were taken), but you can access the “swimming area” behind the rocks by the new flight of steps behind Jordan’s Supermarket built on a watercourse for storm-water. Amazing! And, as if that were not enough of an insult, and contrary to BTI’s marketing, the footpath ends short of the “improvements” at Mango’s restaurant. I am not holding my breath, but in the immortal words of Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back” to see if there is any sand left in front of the rocks by Mango’s.

As it was a very hot day, on my way back to Road View I decided to stop and take a dip, aheem, aheem, between the groynes where I had noticed some visitors bathing on my way to Speightstown. No sooner had I taken the plunge into the water I began to hear voices even though I thought I was the only soul around. Then I looked up and sure enough on the fifth floor of the second to last southernmost block at St. Peter’s Bay I spotted three people on the balcony where I had earlier noticed the black ceiling fans on. I recognized one of the two men as the main developer at St. Peter’s Bay by his trademark shirtjack. I could not hear what they were saying as they surveyed the ocean, the beach, the groynes and moi; but something tells me they are not too happy.

Click images to enlarge.

Now You See It - Now You Don't: Chain shuffle highlights need for beach parking in Mullins area

2010-06-01T11:34:00.001-04:00

From Barbados Today's article: Chain gone

"The controversial chain erected on a sidewalk in Mullins, St. Peter, has been removed.

The chain, which was located outside the Sandalo luxury villa, caused a stir after pedestrians complained they were forced to walk in the road because of it.

Maureen Hackett, manager of the Villa Management department of Bajan Services Limited, managers of the property, said the fence was removed on Friday after Barbados TODAY brought the concerns of pedestrians to her attention.

“We like to follow rules and regulations so as soon as I put down the phone, the fence was taken down,” she said.

However, Bajan Services management stressed that the intention was always to protect pedestrians, rather than restrict them. According to the company, motorists attending the beach and a nearby establishment had made a habit of parking on the sidewalk, damaging it and forcing pedestrians to walk in the road.

“The intention was always to make it safer for the pedestrian.”"

Phew! If we could only get such prompt action on the groynes at St. Peter's Bay, we would be all set here in Road View/Mullins. Seriously though, we have be campaigning for nearly four years for the removal of three rock groynes in the area that have devastated our beaches, all to no avail or action from government or the developer responsible. I wonder who we have to call at Barbados Today to get the ball rolling. I know it's a little different from taking pictures by the roadside, whatwith all the sand you might get in your shoes, or have to walk in water up to your waist; but I still believe that the groynes are a much bigger issue for the area and Barbados as a whole than a silly little movable chain-link parking barrier.

This is not to minimize the dangers posed to the public by what transpired outside Sandolo last week, but it calls attention to the need for beach parking and proper sidewalks in the area which this blog has also been calling for, also to no avail. Again, government has been contributing to the problem by doing what Sandolo was trying to do at the other end of the beach - only difference being (as pictured below) the government's barrier is permanent. The holes are still in front of Sandolo and they can re-setup the wooden posts and run the chain in a few minutes.

Government's permanent parking barrier at northern end of Mullins Beach

One of the post-ready holes for the movable parking barrier in front Sandolo

Again, as with the groynes, government needs to take the lead here with respect to providing adequate public parking at what is still arguably one of the best beaches on the west coast even with all the beach erosion that is still going on in the area. With Bajans now having easy access to cars you cannot expect them to arrive at the beach on foot or by bus; and with more and more tourists opting for rental cars it is becoming increasing urgent to provide the parking that is needed. There is plenty space in the area that can be quickly turned into parking. One good example is the mangrove area just north of Sandolo between the Sea Isle and Sea Shell beaches houses. A small portion of this mangrove (pictured below) fronting the road could be turned into angled parking for about two dozen or so cars. Likewise, now that there is only one remaining (but also in danger of toppling over anytime) coconut tree, the time may now have come to finally get rid of the controversial "beach garden" on Mullins Beach itself by also developing the area as angled parking, after all that's what it was used for before the "beach garden."

Mangrove area near Sandolo which can be filled for parking

Controversial "beach garden" should be returned to parking

Whatever is done needs to be moved on quickly because parking in the area is becoming more and more of a headache both for beach goers and residents. And, with the parking there needs to be a plan to cover up all the open sewers along the road so that we do not see anymore Bajan octogenarians sprawled out on the road in a pool of blood like we witnessed recently.

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Area Beach Hardening Continues: First looks at Speightstown's newest, latest "boardwalk"

2010-05-28T15:53:00.003-04:00

click image to enlarge

Click here for more photos.
Click here for more information on beach hardening.

Beach Enhancement Cancun Style

Beach Enhancement Barbados Style (click image to enlarge)

Click here to see how Cancun is wooing visitors with its beach restoration.

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Restore The Shore

2010-05-22T22:34:00.001-04:00

Restore the Shore from marty benson on Vimeo.

See also: Mullins Bay Blog: Retreat From The Beach: Is it the only option for Mullins Beach

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Barbados National Trust Dismayed

2010-05-21T11:38:00.000-04:00

In keeping with our ongoing concern for the preservation of the little that's left of Speightstown's rich architectural heritage, today we republish here in full a hard-hitting letter to the editor of the Barbados Advocate from the Barbados National Trust drawing attention to continuing destruction of buildings of historic and/or architectural interest in our local area and around the island :

Destruction of buildings a cause for concern

5/21/2010

The Barbados National Trust wishes to express its dismay and considerable regret following two recent demolitions of buildings which once graced our landscape.

Carmen (Lewis Drug Mart), formerly located in Rockley, was a splendid example of early twentieth century Barbadian vernacular. It had been lovingly restored some 15 years ago and was in top shape. It was a structure of character, one of the Barbadian survivors on a strip of road now undergoing a rapid conversion to some faux approximation of a Greater Miami streetscape. The bill board depicting its proposed replacement shows a rectangular, box-like structure which can be found any where, any place. Its total lack of architectural credibility does nothing to justify the demolition of Carmen and more importantly, nothing to contribute to our national identity and national pride.

In Speightstown, which has so much potential for development as a late 18th century port town, the building fabric is being slowly but surely eroded. The latest victim of this ongoing and shortsighted philistinism is the destruction of what was arguably one of the best examples of a Georgian townhouse to be found in Speightstown. This structure, previously located on Church Street, was allowed to fall into disrepair but was still salvageable. It contributed to the charm of Speightstown and like Beauty and the Beast, contrasted sharply with the tasteless, modern structure on its left. Today, it is a gravelled parking lot.

The Barbados National Trust stands firm against the bland homogenization which is replacing originality and those who seem bent on destroying any and everything which stamps us as different and unique. To this end, we have been working closely with Town & Country Planning, architects and owners to insure that developments at historic sites proceed in a manner acceptable to all involved. We invite all who have questions or concerns regarding their historic properties, their status within the law and their options for development to contact the Trust at our Wildey headquarters where we will be happy to assist.

Without this type of commitment, we are destined to lose our once vaunted leadership role in the Caribbean in the area of conservation and preservation. It is not in our culture to renounce our position as shepherd and revert to being one of the faceless bleating sheep in an anonymous flock.

The costs associated with any such voluntary renunciation of leadership will be high. There are the psychological costs associated with a loss of identity and a lack of social and ethical standards. There are also economic costs, as we deliberately grind away our uniqueness that brands us as Barbadian, a distinctive place, a place of value, one worth visiting. There are no appreciable long-term benefits to Barbados morphing into the Costa del Sol or Miami. Quite the contrary. There are serious long-term economic losses and costs associated with our head-long rush to abandon the structures of our past and replace them with dubious architectural concoctions of little merit. Tourism is highly competitive and there must be some lesson to be learned from the fact that our competitors in the Caribbean and elsewhere are busily engaged in conserving and retaining their past, whereas we are hell bent on throwing out the baby with the bath water.

BARBADOS
NATIONAL TRUST

Click here for original Barbados Advocate article.
Click here for our earlier related post - Assailants Of Our Heritage

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OMG, it's "Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory"!

2010-05-04T01:16:00.003-04:00

St. Peter's Bay Barbados

Don't laugh, but the above title of this post was the reaction of one frequent visitor to the island on seeing a recent photo of St. Peter's Bay posted on the Barbados TravelAdvisor forum. Other reactions were not quite so charitable; one called it an "abomination," another - a "monstrosity," and yet another hoped "it sinks into the swamp its built on..." One local has described it as the third ugliest building between Bridgetown and Speightstown, surpassed only by the Eagle Hall Market and The Sands in Sandy Lane. Clearly, it is not the product of one of Ian Morrison's more inspired moments but I suppose beauty is ultimately in the eye of the beholder and is probably also colorblind. Word on the street is that they have sold so far a grand total of 5 of the 57 apartments (probably all to investors in the project).

Of course, the larger "abominations" continue to be the groynes and the destruction of the Dark Hole community which have received a lot of attention on this blog. Curiously, recently there appeared one of those Government sponsored "Public Access To Beach" signs in front of the property. However, when one sets out to follow the path to the beach (as pictured below) one quickly runs into another recently posted sign up against the high fence on the south side of the property which reads: "Temporary Beach Access." I suppose what this all means will shortly become clearer, but given the "abominations" just cited, in more ways than one, I suspect the latter sign is more accurate.

click image to enlarge

Photosynth above best viewed full-screen.

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Can "Sandsaver" Be Another Affordable Solution To Mullins Bay Area Beach Erosion?

2010-04-30T11:42:00.006-04:00

Internet advertisement for the Sandsaver beach restoration system - www.sandsaver.com

Continuing beach erosion in Mullins Bay area April 28, 2010 thanks to the groynes around the corner to the north at St. Peter's Bay condo project.

Say what you will about the USA, at least government officials appear to be responsive to the needs of their constituents. Short of offering a cocktail reception, we have been trying to no avail for over a year to get the Ministers of The Environment and Tourism to drive the eleven miles from Bridgetown to visit Mullins/Road View. At least Florida is serious about tourism.

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A Coast To Be Ashamed Of

2010-04-25T12:37:00.002-04:00

It is usually entertaining whenever one of these environmentally themed days rolls around to read the ads coming from the ~~Corruption Zone~~ Coastal Zone Management Unit in celebration of that day. Their ad in the Advocate last week (pictured above) celebrating Earth Day is yet another duesy. Only the genii at the CZMU could come up with the tag-line "Ensuring the Shoreline is a Coast to be proud of" given their record here on the west coast and especially in the Mullins Bay area where they have presided over the destruction of some of the best beaches on the west coast of Barbados. Exactly who is to be proud of our coast when Conde Nast (one of the leading travel-related companies on the planet) recently described west coast beaches as "eroded little coves with no room to walk and mostly rocky?"

Click here to see what our competition is doing.

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St. Peter's Bay's Big Coming Out Party Marred

2010-04-16T11:58:00.003-04:00

It probably got lost in the mail or something but this blogger did not receive an invitation to the grand opening celebration of St. Peter's Bay. I wonder why ... However, those who did get one will have to wait a little longer for the party originally scheduled for today owing to an untimely and tragic death in the developer's family. Readers of this blog are quite familiar with this blogger's feelings on the controversial groynes at St. Peter's Bay, but on a very human level, let me take this opportunity to express sincerest condolences to the bereaved. Unfortunately, this passing will be forever linked (as pictured above in yesterday's edition of Barbados Today) with the official opening of this condo project that has so radically transformed the sleepy little village of Road View, St. Peter just a mile south of Speightstown.

It is amazing to read some of the headlines and comments that have heated up the local media this week: "STONEWALL," "Conspiracy theory," "danger," "racism," "negligence," etc. Yet, if you have been following this blog for any length of time, you know that the controversy now revolving around St. Peter's Bay and it's main developer and his family did not start with the events of this past week. For those of us local to the area it all started with the way St. Peter's Bay went about acquiring the lands upon which it is built and how they have subsequently treated those lands. Particularly in this regard, with respect to the groynes which many locals believe have destroyed beaches and private property between St. Peter's Bay and (and including) Mullins Beach. This view has been scoffed at as "pure ignorance" by St. Peter's Bay main developer, even though three coastal engineers (two of them from outside of Barbados) concur with us. Of course, St. Peter's Bay has in it's corner the powerful support of Barbados' Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU), even though the latter is still reeling from revelations of corruption in high places within its midst.

Regardless of how I say this I know I am going to end up in trouble but it is not the intention of this blogger to offend anyone or be insensitive to anyone's current plight, but there is a teaching moment here from which we all can benefit. That lesson is that not because we are powerful and may have a lot of money and influence are we given the right to abuse the environment and each other as St. Peter's Bay has done, now with the blessing of successive Barbados governments. There are always consequences for such actions. Some of those consequences are quite physical as we now see in the landscape between the new condos and Mullins Beach, but others can be spiritual, and hence less readily discerned as this blog alluded to last year in a post entitled: The Turtles Are Praying.

Keep in mind that this world did not start with those of us who currently occupy it. We can still learn from the collective knowledge and experiences passed down by those who occupied and managed it before us. In Buddhism and Hinduism there is the concept of Karma which approximately equates the common saying: what goes around comes around eventually. Among people of the Abrahamic faith traditions (Christians, Muslims and Jews) that concept is best expressed in the Old Testament passage which speaks of the Lord "... punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation..." (Exodus 20:5 NIV). While not claiming that there is a direct causal relationship between the groynes and the events of this week, we should all take pause to consider both the temporal and eternal consequences of all our actions. This blog continues to call for the removal of the groynes at St. Peter's Bay.

This Should Not Have Happened

2010-04-13T10:45:00.002-04:00


Accident Caused By Government Negligence(click image to enlarge)

Two years ago this blog drew attention to the dangers posed to pedestrians in the Road View/Mullins/Gibbses area by vehicular traffic and the poor state of the main road which traverses the area complicating those problems. Nothing has been done since then towards implementation of the numerous recommendations, some of which could have prevented the accident in Road View yesterday morning which sent an 80-year old senior citizen and area resident to the hospital with her life hanging by a thread. She was trying to cross the road to avoid a difficult to negotiate stretch complicated by an uncovered storm water drain or gutter on one side of the road. She had to choose between walking in traffic around a dangerous bend or trying to straddle the gutter (pictured above) - a challenging task for the fittest of us, much less an octogenarian.

What are we waiting for to cover this ditch and create a proper sidewalk in this heavily trafficked tourist area? Are we waiting for a photo of a tourist in the state pictured above to be plastered all over the British or Canadian media before we act? Did we not learn anything from the the Long Beach incident last year when our Government and the local media with egg all over their faces were hiding from the international media and the blogosphere? How many more must die or be maimed for life because of these damned Neanderthal ditches in a 21st century economy? Of course, this blogger is not suggesting that a visitor's life is more worthy than that of locals, but tourism is our livelihood and this ditch is a threat to it. More and more tourists are forced to use this road because they can no longer walk along the beach thanks to the groynes in the area that have destroyed the beach. This blog has also been calling for the removal of those groynes for nearly four years to no avail.

See also: Bad Karma In Area

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Retreat From The Beach: Is it the only option for Mullins Beach

2010-04-09T13:10:00.002-04:00

Mullins Beach Winter Tourist Season 2009-2010

“But if it gets worse in the future my belief is that Government will have to consider some policy changes. For example the Chief Town Planner requires that on beaches that you have a 100 ft/30 m step back from the water mark for coastal development…my guess would be that we would have to retreat a little bit further.”

“People have started doing that already in some countries such as Cuba where they set back hotels on the coast 300 feet inland. Tourism is our business and we cannot afford every time a winter storm up north occurs for us to lose our hotels, if it continues to get worse we may have to seriously consider retreating inland in the future...” ___Dr. Lorna Inniss [Deputy Director of the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU)]

Cancun, Mexico Winter Tourist Season 2009-2010

What Is It?

2010-03-18T05:10:00.003-04:00


Photo of construction underway at the former Sandridge Hotel site (click image to enlarge)

What is it? That's the question on the minds of many in Road View/Mullins as they witness construction activity in progress on the site of the former Sandridge Hotel over the last half a year or so. It says a lot about transparency in Barbados when a project with sometimes large construction cranes on the site can be executed in a neighborhood and nobody in that neighborhood, except perhaps for the developer himself who lives in the area, knows for sure what's going on. Questioning some of the construction workers on the site yields very little information. I don't know whether they have all been sworn to secrecy but the most you get out of them is, unbelievably, "I don't know," or "they say condos."

As far as this blogger knows, the project has no name, there are no billboards out front advertising it as we see in other west coast projects (even the stalled ones), and there is nothing in the media about it - not even in the puff pieces the Nation newspaper ran of the developer late last year. Recently, the developer refused to answer another journalist's questions about the project. We saw this same secrecy next door at what they are calling St Peter's Bay, and it saddled us with three massive rock groynes which have exacerbated beach erosion problems in the area threatening private property and upsetting the ecological balance; and also brought about the impending destruction of one of the area's old neighborhoods.

A source which has proven to be very reliable in the past has told this blogger that what's going up on the site is a block of five ultra-luxury 20K sq. ft. condos a la The Sands south of Sandy Lane. [As an aside, it has also come to the attention of this blogger that The Sands has not had a single guest since its opening early last year, and even though they are also very, very deep pockets associated with that project, they have been recently laying off staff and putting others on short time]. We already know that it is not just an extension of St Peter's Bay because of the massive permanent wall fence they are constructing between the two properties. This fence also includes a new seawall, pictured below, hardening the beachfront even though there has been significant accretion in the area north of the groynes.

Seawall at The Sands II (click image to enlarge)

This seawall may or may not have been the trigger of a vague warning from the Coastal Zone Management Unit earlier this year about the possible catastrophic consequences of building "illegal engineering structures on some beaches, particularly in the north of the island." This blogger is not saying that the seawall is illegal nor that the CZMU necessarily had it in its crosshairs. However, it has been noticed that work on the project has slowed significantly since the publication of the warning. There is still some light construction equipment on the site but the huge cranes are now gone. The CZMU itself has also recently fallen on tough times because of its own secrecy and lack of transparency.

Sitting Cushy

2010-03-14T12:45:00.002-04:00


click image to enlarge

So, the St. Peter's Bay condo project in Lower Road View, St. Peter (photo above taken earlier today) is finally nearing completion and getting ready for its official opening hopefully next month as the winter tourist season is ending. There is an irony in there somewhere but I can't quite place my finger on it. Maybe it has something to do with the rumour that they were trying to open three (3) months ago. The project has three (3) controversial groynes on the beach out front, has undergone at least three (3) name changes in the last three (3) years, and despite their recent claim that they were not selling anything before completion, after more than three (3) years of doing just that on huge billboards out front and back, on the Internet and heaven only knows where else, rumour now has it that they have already sold a grand total of three (3) of the approximately 60 "luxury condos." As bad as that may sound, St. Peter's Bay may still be sitting as cushy as the plush loungers under the orange umbrellas around the pool area given the deep pockets (both local and international) associated with it, and the fact that its developers have already started two other major tourism related projects in the area - a rumoured ultra-luxury condo block next door on the former Sandridge Hotel site, and a condo/marina project at Retreat, St. Peter.

Paradise Lost

2010-03-11T11:38:00.000-05:00

click image to enlarge

"The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."

--- John Milton

It was abandoned decades earlier as a little roadside tire repair shop until one day a returning national saw its potential as beach house on one of the loveliest sandy streches on the west coast - Mullins Beach. And so was created Donald's Villa (see top photo) right on the border between Mullins (actually, Bayfield) and Road View. Both visitors and locals admired the little emerald and white gem and marveled at what some thought was a stroke of luck - a place on the beach on the Platinum Coast. But luck has run out for Donald's Villa as indeed it has also for every single beachfront property between the Mullins Restaurant and the still unfinished condos at the controversial St. Peter's Bay project in Lower Road View. The severe Atlantic winter storms this season have washed out all the sand behind Donald's Villa, undermined the boulders protecting it and opened a big crack in its seawall (see arrow in bottom photo) mere feet away from the cottage itself. If these storms continue into mid April as happened last year, Donald's Villa and several other properties in the area could be history.

By now readers of this blog know that the cause of all this ongoing destruction from the ocean in the area is Climate Change exacerbated by three groynes built to create a bigger beach for the condo owners at St. Peter's Bay. This is not conjecture nor "pure ignorance" (the latter comment from the man who built the groynes), but the scientific conclusions of local and international coastal engineers who have looked at the problem. It is clear that those who approved the groynes (the Coastal Zone Management Unit) knew of the likely outcomes, consequently, some have not so cynically suggested that there is an unholy private and public sector alliance to force the poor and others off the beachfront so that it can be later repaired to make room for even more beach row condos.

Cries for help have largely fallen on deaf ears over the past four years. Pressure from this blog and other sources have only resulted in a vague and rambling promise to "research" the problem which the CZMU placed in a segment of the media for public consumption late last year. A high official in the Barbados Tourism Authority was raised in the house pictured next to Donald's Villa and one would have thought that by now that too should have counted for something given the flight tourists from the area. We are now living the nightmare of a lost paradise. Heaven has become Hell.

Echoes Of The Mekong River Disaster In Mullins Bay: How poorly planned upstream water-related developments destroy downstream environments

2010-03-08T05:00:00.004-05:00

Click here to follow the saga of how three man-made rock groynes hogging sand and sediment upstream in Road View, St. Peter have devastated beaches to south in the downstream area.


"Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them." Job 1:6 KJV

Meanwhile, yesterday marked the launch with a church service at St. Patrick RC Cathedral of the Coastal Zone Management Unit's "Tsunami And Other Coastal Hazards Awareness Week." It is very, very doubtful whether any mention at all will be made during the week about the posting of the proper international signage warning of the dangers of swimming near groynes (as this blog has called for in the past), let alone any discussion of the economic and environmental dislocation groynes have caused in the Mullins Bay area since 2006.

SHOCKING: CZMU Knew What Was Coming Down The Pike For Mullins Beach

2010-03-05T08:58:00.003-05:00


click image to enlarge

Is it just me or do you (reader) also smell the rat in the above article carried on page 6 of yesterday's edition of Barbados Today titled "CZMU developing erosion models"? I am not too bright, but even a casual reading of this article strongly suggests that the Coastal Zone Management Unit has and is continuing to develop models capable of predicting the likely erosion impact on our beaches for both long and short term swell activity around the island. Lorhavismercy (pardon my Bajan), you mean to tell me three weeks ago these shams knew four (4) days in advance that bigger than normal swells were headed for the west coast and, in their opinion, it was not their responsibility to warn anybody about them and their likely consequences?

We know they were/are probably preoccupied with the media elsewhere in stemming all the corruption oozing out of their offices lately, but one Friday morning last summer this blogger witnessed the CZMU having a big fight on the beach with people helping a property owner with a few boulders to stop his house falling into the sea, and by the following Sunday (in less than two (2) days) the Coastal Zone Management Unit had the Advocate come out with the big and bold frontpage headline - "NOT SO FAST! CZMU tells property owners to follow procedure. " What's the use of this government agency? Whose side are they really on? Do they not care that Mullins Beach (one of the best beaches on the west coast according to Conde Nast, and they should know good beaches) has been destroyed? Do they not care that one small, black Bajan entrepreneur has not been able to rent his beach umbrellas and sunbeds for the last three weeks because there is no beach on which to set them up? Where is the Minister of Tourism on all of this? Where is the Minister of The Environment? I am sorry, but winning and dining a few repeat visitors at Illaro Court, as we are reading about today in the same Advocate newspaper, does not cut the mustard on Mullins Beach.

See also: Coastal Throws Another Monkey Wrench At Road View/Mullins

More Dramatic Photos Of The Ongoing Destruction At Mullins Beach

2010-02-25T13:01:00.005-05:00

Our friends at the Planet Barbados blog recently captured the above photo of the ongoing destruction of Mullins Beach. Click here or the link below for other photos and blog post.

Erosion affects the beaches of Barbados Barbados hotels Planet Barbados

Posted using ShareThis

See also our post "Dark Hole Plight In Spotlight"

While the corrupt government agency with responsibility for beaches here in Barbados continues to blame Climate Change impiously waiting and hoping for our beaches to restore themselves on their own click here to see what our competition is currently doing.
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Big Surprise: NationNews.com Reporting CZMU In Hot Seat

2010-02-19T08:27:00.003-05:00

"AN INTERNAL AUDIT of the Coastal Zone Management Unit (CZMU) by the Accountant General has unearthed several irregularities.
Investigations by the WEEKEND NATION have revealed that CZMU's director Dr Leo Brewster was called before the Accountant General to explain, among other things, the awarding of contracts for work within his department without adherence to the Financial Management and Audit Act, or the Financial Rules, 1971..."

Click here for entire NationNews.com article.

See also: OVER TO POLICE

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Visiting Canadian Journalist Witnesses, Investigates And Reports On Beach Erosion In Road View/Mullins

2010-02-15T16:14:00.001-05:00

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO TRAVEL FAR or be an expert to witness the changes under way along the coastlines of Barbados.
Just look in the backyard of the people from Mullins and Road View in St Peter who faced the power of extreme weather as ten-foot-tall waves battered their beach all Saturday and yesterday.
A visible casualty of the rough surf was the Mullins Restaurant. Its deck collapsed during the early hours of yesterday after enduring more than 24 hours of pounding by waves..."

"Some people along the beach say the rock groynes near the St Peter's Bay development have added to the stress of climate change over the past three years by stopping the natural flow of sand along the beach.
But Bjorn Bjerkhamn, whose company is building St Peter's Bay and another luxury development next door where the former Sandridge Hotel stood, said in a recent interview that criticism of the groynes, which passed scrutiny of the Coastal Management Zone Unit, reflected "pure ignorance"..."

* Jane George is a visiting Canadian journalist.

Reader Comments:
"That statement from Bjorn Bjerkhamn reflects the contempt he and the CZMU have for the local (mainly black) people of Road View/Mullins. He thinks that giving "the boys on the block" a football will silence criticism of the environmental disaster he has visited upon one of the best beaches in Barbados. Where is Bjerkhamn's Environmental Impact Study to build those groynes? At least three separate independent coastal engineers (one local and two international) have looked at the rock groynes at St. Peter's Bay and have concluded that they are contributing to the beach erosion in the area. After much pressure CZMU came out late last year sheepishly claiming they are "researching" the problem. But we already know what that "research" is all about - facilitating developers building of even more empty condos, rock revetments and rock groynes."
Speightstown Rat

"We are in Callaloo, a house just next to Mullins beach and we have lost 4 feet of sand from the beach in front of our house. We are now down to bare rock. No sign yet that the sand will come back. Because the sand is gone, the waves now crash up below our house. Scary. But the weather is beautiful."
Alexander Keyserlingk

Click here to read entire NationNews.com article and comments.

Pic Of The Week

2010-01-22T11:19:00.000-05:00

Click image to enlarge

One of the exciting things about Mullins Bay is its proximity to Port St. Charles just a couple miles to the north which means that much of their traffic has to pass by and/or stop by sooner or later. One such visitor earlier this week was the luxury yacht - Slipstream - captured through the coconut palms of Jentillia beach cottage in the photo above. This yacht was recently rented by Simon Cowell over the Christmas holidays for a tour of the eastern/southern Caribbean at the reported princely sum of $1M USD a week. Apparently, it is currently also for sale at the recently reduced asking price of $20.5M USD. Click here for more pictures and information on Slipstream.

More Beach Recovery Lessons From Mexico

2010-01-20T19:19:00.001-05:00

New Year New Sunsets To Ponder

2010-01-19T03:17:00.003-05:00

Mullins Beach Takes A Pounding

2010-01-04T09:11:00.005-05:00

Two weeks of seasonal rough seas have left Mullins Beach a disaster zone. Nowhere is this more evident than the area around the Westpoint beach cottage on the northern end of the beach. The waves unearthed the bedrock of the area, footings of old permanent beach umbrellas that disappeared a generation ago, and threaten the toppling of the few remaining coconut trees on the beach.

It is sad that this phenomenon occurs at the height of the tourist season but that does not absolve the responsible authorities from their role in this disaster through decades of neglecting reconstruction of west coast beaches after storms, and the approval of private individuals building groynes which have contributed to the erosion problem.

Current rumour now is that they are planning to build even more groynes in the area to correct the damage already caused by the three groynes added three years ago. This is utter madness as it just pushes the erosion problem further down the coast like the ones at St. Peter's Bay have done - not to mention the chopping up of the beach into inaccessible little coves and, as pictured below in the case of St. Peter's Bay, presenting visitors with formidable ugly piles of rocks where once there was sandy beach.

St. Peter's Bay Beach Disaster January 1, 2010

Clearly, what we need is less rocks and more sand. Sand helps to cushion the effect of the waves on the coastline whereas rocks exacerbate the problem by producing rip currents and other phenomena which destroy beaches. We need to implement a program of widening beaches with sand such as that currently under way in Cancun, Mexico. If we don't, Cancun and other tropical tourist destinations that are doing it right will eat our lunch.

Cancun, Mexico

Links:

A Cancun Beach Restoration video.

AlJazeera report on Cancun's beach restoration.

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It Doesn't Feel Very Christmassy This Year

2009-12-21T18:32:00.009-05:00

It has been a rough year here in the Mullins Bay area, and not just because of the Global Economic Recession. The Peoples Worship Centre In Road View didn’t have their annual Christmas Program this year – I wonder why… Maybe, they don’t have much left to sing about this time since they spent all year singing the same 1/2 dozen or so 2-line praise-worship songs from America over and over and over.
O for the days when this church was the center of life of Road View, Mullins, Bakers, Rock Dundo and Lower Carlton. People walked from those areas back then through thunder, lightning and rain to see this church burn with the Gospel. These days very few local people attend but on Sunday mornings the parking lot across the road from it is still filled with cars bearing license plates from as far away as St. Philip, Christ Church and St. Michael, people who do not even bother to greet locals on the street, far less care about the disappearing beach behind the church.

Talking about the disappearing beach, a couple weeks ago the Prime Minister was a couple miles down the road “officially breaking ground” on the new marina at Port Ferdinand of Arrogance when he highlighted Mullins Beach as the poster child for the impact of Climate Change (formerly Global Warming) on Barbados.

	He made no mention of how humans contributed to the destruction of the beaches in the Mullins area by the building groynes at St. Peter’s Bay, as that probably would have upset his
Thompson	hosts at Port Ferdinand (not to be confused with King Ferdinand of Argon)
	who are also responsible for the groynes at St. Peter’s Bay, especially too as they are currently the only game in town in terms of desperately needed construction jobs.
Brewster

Of course, he may have only been saying what he was told by the civil servants at the Coastal Zone Management Unit who seem to have a vested interest in defending the groynes. Apparently, their latest fear is (and this is a real doozy) that removing the groynes could cause a rushing-sand catastrophe. Don't know if they anticipate that the beach bar in Mullins or the Rausing family's massive beachfront villa in Gibbes could be buried by the sand the groynes are holding back also. LOL!

St. Peter’s Bay itself still has not been officially opened yet this month as was recently advertised, but we still have a few days left in the month and the year. And, as we saw with these people at Port Ferdinand of Arrogance, official openings have nothing to do with actual starting or ending dates. In any case, no one is expecting to see any tourists lounging on this stolen beach any time soon as they first have to try to sell a few condos. Good luck with that in this economy!

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Assailants Of Our Heritage

2009-12-10T03:26:00.004-05:00

Two weeks ago we celebrated our 43rd anniversary of independence here in Barbados which meant that most of us either sang or heard the words to our National Anthem at least once around that period. The chorus of this anthem says:

"We loyal sons and daughters all
Do hereby make it known
These fields and hills beyond recall
Are now our very own
We write our names on history's page
With expectations great,
Strict guardians of our heritage
Firm craftsmen of our fate"

For those of us who have watched the systematic destruction of Speightstown in the decades since independence a more accurate rendition of the last couple lines of our anthem would be something more like:

"Assailants of our heritage
Through which we seal our fate"

We would not be too far from the truth given the recent bulldozing of one of the last colonial era two-storey buildings (pictured above) on Church Street in Speightstown. I was stunned speechless passing this area recently to see this treasure gone and in its place a parking lot created, apparently for the supermarket next door, but currently occupied by a large white tent under which Christmas trinkets were being sold. Have we gone stark, steering mad here in Barbados? Other islands in the region also in tourism would do anything to get their hands on a colonial era building such as this that was just destroyed because they know it tells a story - a story that people travel thousands of miles to hear and see.

This latest destruction of our heritage in Speightstown is all the more tragic given the fact that the new government has been making noises about berthing cruise ships again in or near Speightstown. This building could have been restored and brought back into usefulness both for tourism and local commerce. This destruction is a travesty. Whoever signed off on it should be tried for incompetence and stupidity.

This is the same mentality that earlier called for the destruction of the ruins at nearby Farley Hill to create more partying and carnival space (coincidentally, some of the same people employed to polish the image of those destroying the beach in Road View/Mullins). Two days after we celebrated our 43rd Independence anniversary an article appeared in the Canadian press entitled "Another side of Barbados: Island's less visited northern region has rugged appeal" lauding the charm of Speightstown and the historical treasures in and around the area. It said in part:

"SPEIGHTSTOWN, Barbados -- The northern part of Barbados is one of its least developed regions, but it's also among the most beautiful.
From quiet Mullins Bay Beach to the dramatic cliffs and crashing waves of North Point, the region is home to the island nation's oldest greathouse and historic Speightstown, with one of its best new museums... The charming streets are lined with 19th century two-storey shops, many with Georgian-style balconies..."

Tourism appeal aside, what does it say about us as a people that we cannot and/or do not recognize the wealth we have in our own heritage? When are we going to understand and live out the true meaning of being "strict guardians of our heritage?" It does not mean that old is bad and must be torn down to put up something that looks like a North American city. Even they, the North Americans" are past the idiocy of tearing down everything to build new. More often than not these days the old is being kept, even if it is only just the old facade propped up while the new skyscraper or whatever is built behind it. This building on Church Street which complimented so well the Georgian parish church across the street from it, St. Peter's Church, could and should have been saved. It is time to stop the lunacy!!!

Alarmingly, this "tweet" appeared on Twitter a few days ago: http://twitter.com/WestCoastVillas/statuses/6442279068

Mullins Bay Blog Welcomes CZMU's Friday The 13th Statement

2009-11-20T13:21:00.003-05:00

Paraskevidekatriaphobia aside, this blog cautiously welcomes last Friday the 13th statement from the Coastal Zone Management Unit which appeared in the local press to the effect that an investigation is in the works looking into erosion problems in Road View/Mullins. This is a good thing because it says that the CZMU is listening to the concerns raised by this blog and other interested parties in the area. However, whether it is/was the Friday the 13th thing or things just getting muddled in translation, there remains a need for clarification.

The CZMU does not have all the answers despite all their expertise in coastal engineering. Several other experts both local and international (some with more experience in these matters than CZMU) have looked at the problem and have said, yes, the groynes have had an impact on the erosion in the downstream area. For them to be still insisting that it was just the storm event last April is nonsense. There are pictures on this blog of accelerated erosion behind Kings Beach Hotel that happened after the groynes were installed long before last April's 'south swells.' People who live on the beach on the west coast know that southerly swells are usually problematic. We never said the groynes were solely responsible, we and the other experts have always been saying that the groynes have exacerbated the problem. There is really no need to obfuscate and/or try to confuse the public on the real issues here. If we are honestly looking for solutions, we must at least be honest about the cause or causes of the problem.

This blog hopes that whatever is in fact in the works has not yet advanced beyond the stage where there is no room for input from the those who will be most impacted by whatever remedies CZMU has in mind. This is a great opportunity for CZMU to convene a meeting with the people of Road View/Mullins to hear what they think are the real problems and whatever solutions they too may bring to the table. Part of the reason for all the distrust in the area is/was the perceived disrespect of and contempt for the community in their not being involved in the decison-making process before the groynes were installed. That scenario will play out again if again people wake up to find bulldozers on the beach just building three or four more groynes without their consultation.

Links:
Barbados Adovcate - Friday November 13, 2009 - Page 1, Page 5

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Cove Bay To River Bay -via- Mullins Bay

2009-11-18T09:28:00.002-05:00

Click image to enlarge

The large colourful ad appearing in the press promoting the latest Coastal Zone Management Unit's sponsored "Sundown Beach Walk" (they dropped the "Tourism Evironmental" bit this time, hmmm) has caught our attention here in Mullins Bay since it prominently features two shots from a similar walk through our area last summer. The top photo shows walkers strolling along the sand on Mullins Beach in front of Royal Westmoreland's Mullins Restaurant, but the middle photo shows walkers just a stone's throw away to the north gingerly negotiating sharpe rocks on the beach and wading through high water in the area which was devastated by southerly swells last spring, which latter area also became the poster child in another section of the press for the environmental disaster Mullins Bay has become as a result of the accelerated narrowing of the beach influenced by the three rock groynes in front of the soon to be opened St. Peter's Bay Villas.

It was behind the exposed roots of the fallen almond tree in the middle photo that the head of the CZMU was confronted on that walk by this blogger. He took responsibility for approval of the groynes but claimed that removal is another matter for another government department. Since that time we have heard nothing as to whether or not CZMU ever got the two years of data on the groynes which they had supposedly requested from St. Peter's Bay which they were again "supposedly" going to use to come up with their own evaluation and recommendations to the other government department. The Minister responsible for the environment never showed up in the area like he promised, neither has the Minister responsible for tourism. Who knows, perhaps they are all waiting to show up for the cocktails next month at the official opening of St. Peter's Bay.

An even more interesting and stunning development was the puff pieces earlier this week on St. Peter's Bay and its developer by the same reporter who earlier covered the environmental and social crises in the area. Not one word was said about the groynes and the destruction in their downdrift. Has everyone who knows anything about these matters suddenly been striken with amnesia? Everyone except the CZMU's graphic artist who consistently provides enough fodder to keep the Save Mullins Bay effort alive? Thanks again, CZMU, and may you meet with friendlier "currents" on the "cliff top" between Cove Bay and River Bay this weekend than you did last summer in the downdrift of the groynes on the "beach" in Road View/Mullins.

(P.S. As "luck" would have it, it was just pointed out to this blogger that the CZMU did make a "Friday 13th" statement on this matter.")

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This Is Monaco: Is This What We Want For Barbados?

2009-11-15T19:52:00.074-05:00

Click image to enlarge

After all that has gone on in the Mullins Bay area this year and reported to the country, like most right-thinking Bajans I was stunned by the two puff pieces today in the local press fawning all over St. Peter's Bay, Port Ferdinand and their developer. Even more troubling was the revelation that the developer wants "to see Barbados become to the Caribbean what Monaco is to Europe." Far be it from this blogger to tell a transplanted Scandinavian what to dream for Barbados or anywhere else; but, in my humble opinion, the larger question should be what do we Barbadians as a people want and dream for our own country, and do we really want to be Monaco or anywhere else. The urgency is that the Monaco Vision Thing for Barbados is happening before our very eyes and it is leaving in its wake unprecedented disruption and destruction as this blog has chronicled over the last four years. If we do not wake up we will be strangers in our own country very soon - that is, what's left of it.

Are the condos at St. Peter's Bay leaning?

2009-10-31T18:16:00.000-04:00

Barbados TravelAdvisor • View topic - Photos - Kings Beach, St.Peters Condos, old Sandridge site

Posted using ShareThis

Horror Of St. Peter's Bay Captured Through The Lens Of A British Visitor

2009-10-28T08:34:00.001-04:00

Devastated beach in front of the old Kings Beach Hotel

with the groynes responsible for the destruction in background

Tourism and environmental officials in Barbados may continue to ignore this blog and its concerns about the state of the beaches in the Mullins Bay area, but they cannot continue to ignore forever the fact that tourists have begun to notice. Visitors to the area have begun to document and vent their feelings on the Internet about the destruction they have seen caused by private sector greed facilitated by government policy (or lack of it). The photo above was taken by a British visitor who stayed in Road View last week who was shocked by the devastation groynes installed by the developer of the St. Peter's Bay condo project and authorized by the Coastal Zone Management Unit have caused in the area. This photo and others were posted on the Internet on a site sharing information on Barbados with other potential visitors to the island. Word is getting out that Mullins Bay is a disaster zone. Pretty soon you are not going to be able to sell holidays, let alone condos or villas, in an area where people do not want to stay unless government does something about a situation that is getting worse by the day.

We are still feeling the effects of the global economic recession here in Barbados with lower visitor numbers projected for the coming months and delays in tourism related construction across the country. It has been announced that the condos at St. Peter's Bay are to start going on sale this coming December which means that in these economic times they are probably going to be priced nowhere near their original askings - of course, that's if they really want to, need to, or indeed, can, sell them now. As this blog has pointed out this project has already been a big disaster environmentally and socially; destroying beaches, uprooting a community and forcing other neighbors to spend money they do not have on sea defenses, etc. So, if it turns out to be also an economic disaster for the developers and the government, they have only themselves to blame, and few if any tears in the community.

Another photo by British visitor of the area around the bend from Kings Beach

showing beach narrowed by encroaching shoreline and half million dollars

worth of rock revetments and other sea defenses.

Another Disaster Waiting To Happen

2009-10-10T11:36:00.002-04:00

Blocked watercourse between Mullins & Gibbes

If the maids and housekeepers kept the insides of the villas and condos in the Mullins Bay area the way government and some people keep the surrounding environment, there is no question we would not have tourists visiting the area - let alone staying in it. The blocked watercourse that sits on the border between Mullins and Gibbes, pictured above, is not only a disaster waiting to happen were we to get heavy rains (a clear possibility given the recent history of this time of year) but is also another example of a government that has gone AWOL on the very environment it is looking to sustain the largest engine in the economy - tourism.

Over the last three years this blog has documented the destruction of beaches in the area owing to government giving permission to one developer to construct three rock groynes on the beach, so we know there is no commitment to maintaining the beaches. But unlike the beach erosion which they can conveniently blame on ~~gullible~~ global warming, blocked watercourses, dirty gutters, broken systems and the like all point to a fundamental sickness of the soul of this country. That sickness is built on the myth many hold that whatever we do or do not do tourists will still come and the dollars will continue to flow. And, it is amazing to me that people can continue to hold on to this myth after visiting cities like Miami and Ft. Lauderdale and others in North America which also depend on tourism.

Can you imagine a situation like the one pictured above existing anywhere along Route A1A from Miami to Palm Beach? Why should it be allowed anywhere along our main coastal thoroughfare where we parade visitors up and down daily? And, it is not that Florida necessarily has more money to throw at tourism than we do; but it is because they are committed to doing whatever it takes to make visitors not only want to come to visit but also to keep returning bringing others with them. If there were such a commitment on the part of our government, a major watercourse which sheds water from miles around could not be blocked just yards from its outlet to the ocean creating a potential traffic hazard, area flooding and possible loss of life in the event of a tropical downpour.

A country does not have to be rich monetarily to keep a watercourse clear and well maintained nor to remove groynes that a destroying its coastline. What is needed is a true commitment to a sustainable environment making life and work and play more pleasing and easy for both residents and visitors. Mouthing the right words every now and then is no substitute for the consistent application of such a commitment. To do less is a surrender to the inevitable slide into poverty and chaos that is the penalty for such neglect.

Low Visitor Arrivals Spark Sunbed War On Mullins Beach

2009-09-23T09:21:00.001-04:00

In an earlier post this blog called attention to the impact of the global economic recession and the current low tourist season on Mullins Beach - particularly upon the small watersports operators and beach vendors. Now it seems that impact is being felt even by the big player on the beach - Royal Westmoreland Beach Club. Apparently, Royal Westmoreland was happily co-existing with the other two small sunbed vendors on the beach until now that their guest numbers have fallen through the floor. In the past when times were good they pretty much ignored other visitors to the beach and focused mainly on their villa owners and their guests who had free access to their sunbeds. However, now that these numbers are down they have suddenly and aggressively started going after the day-trippers - dropping their rates and all in the process.

Naturally, this has not gone down well with the other sunbed vendors who were actually on the beach long before Royal Westmoreland arrived on the scene. They are claiming that Royal Westmoreland does not have a license to rent sunbeds to the general public - but one only to operate a beach club for their owners and guests; and further, that Royal Westmoreland's "salaried employees" should not be "taking bread off their table" as "hand-to-mouth" daily-bread earners. Tempers have flared and tensions are high. Stay tuned.

CZMU Plugs It's Rockley & Welches Babies But Ignores Mullins Bay

2009-09-22T15:15:00.001-04:00

CZMU ad celebrating Arbor Day (click to enlarge)

100+ Yr. old Manchineel tree lost to the groynes (click image to enlarge)

Coconut tree which fell last month on Mullins Beach (click image to enlarge)

This blogger continues to be miffed by the Coastal Zone Management Unit whose latest insult involves a giant ad in one local paper purportedly celebrating Arbor Day plugging their tree and shrub planting at Rockley and Welches while ignoring ongoing destruction of vegetation in the Mullins Bay area. In two separate posts last month this blog called attention to the disappearing beachfront vegetation in Mullins and what it portends. One dealt with the cutting down of the last manchineel tree between Gibbes and Cobblers Cove, and the other with a fallen coconut tree on Mullins Beach proper. Of course, CZMU continues to be in denial that three piles of boulders (otherwise called groynes or groins) which they approved and were planted on the beach in the Mullins Bay area have anything to do with the ongoing destruction of the natural trees and shrubs in the area - most of which have come down (in their speak) "during periods of wave erosion." This blogger does salute the CZMU for its efforts at Rockley and Welches, but it's their consistency that is being called into question here. You cannot truthfully be celebrating Arbor Day in Christ Church while destroying trees and shrubs in St. Peter.

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Owner Hits The Internet To Clear Up Kings Beach Saga

2009-09-21T12:32:00.000-04:00

A septic tank of the abandoned Kings Beach Hotel

unearthed since the groynes were installed next door

at the St. Peter's Bay condo project (click image to enlarge)

If you have been following this blog for any length of time you know by now that the saga surrounding the abandoned Kings Beach Hotel has dominated news in the Mullins Bay area for the last several years. You also know that it has figured prominently in the debate over the groynes at the neighboring St. Peter's Bay condo project. So, it is indeed refreshing where in the past we have had to rely on rumor and hearsay for news on Kings Beach to finally get some definitive word - this time from an/the owner. An/the owner has recently surfaced on our sister forum - Barbados Travel Advisor - and, in conversation with some former guests and others with an interest in the hotel and the Mullins Bay area, he is clearing up "the misquotes" and "all the debate and chat about KBH."

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