Sargassum Orient Beach

Massive amounts of Sargassum for the last week or so, especially in the Club O area. Frontloader does its best to remove it, but there is just way too much of the stuff. Thankfully, there was a break yesterday in the middle of the beach. Wondering what the other beaches on the west side look like right now. This is nasty.

Yes, we have never seen that much seaweed at the CO beach. Yesterday at ~ 7:00 AM the seaweed was ~ 10 feet onto the beach (and over a foot high), and ~ 100-150 feet out into the ocean near Papagayo. The problem is that when the Sargassum rots it releases hydrogen sulfide, which is toxic. My understanding is that Cedrick has the seaweed raked just on Fridays, but yesterday he had part of the seaweed removed.

In contrast, the seaweed is removed 5-6 times/day out near La Playa and Orient Beach Hotel. Given the currents, there is now almost no seaweed visible in the ocean at those locations.

We were there (briefly) on Saturday and agree it’s the worst we’ve ever seen, by far. Getting in the water is not even an option. Removal of that quantity of Sargassum looks like a major project. Can’t imagine it will happen quickly. Looks like Orient may not be in the cards this trip.

I remember when Bruno was still at LaPlaya, he demanded they get a machine to clear the seaweed, so that's why it has been clear there. Sorry it has been so bad there recently. Gomer, who is staying at Beachside Villas, has reported that Simpson Bay has has almost no seaweed the past week or so.

There are pictures of absolutely massive mats of sargassum across some of the beaches of Martinique. I haven't been around to Orient in quite a while.

I thought Kontiki (which is relatively close to the Club O. beach) had a tractor or a machine of some type that collected the algae, but there were concerns that using machinery harmed the beaches. If Kontiki has such a machine maybe they can ask to use it on the C/O beach, too. Removing it by manual labor looks almost overwhelming. When we were in Cancun a few years ago our resort had two young men with wire leaf rakes tending to the beach every morning during our stay. That worked, but the area they were tending to was much, much smaller than the Club O. beach area. There must be some future agricultural use of these sea grasses if they can be harvested. Maybe some type of fuel extract or fertilizer?

As I said in original post, Cedric or whomever has contracted a large earthmover that attempts to remove the Sargassum every morning but with the large volume, it is impossible. Going to the western beaches today.

Did a little research on this last night, and a machine called the "Sargasso Skimmer" was invented/created about three years ago down in Belize. I've seen sea grasses on the Riviera Maya in the past, but nothing like I've seen on St. Martin at certain times over the past five years. This machine skims the water and sucks up the floating sea grass patches, and a conveyer like tube unit draws it in for disposal. Check out this website for further details: www.desmi.com. or Google search 'Sargasso Skimmer'. I have no idea how much something like this would cost, but as we all know the beaches of St. Martin and the Caribbean for that matter are cherished resources that need to be protected. Maybe at some point down the road the French and/or Dutch governments will pursue such machinery for their eastern facing beaches?

I'm too lazy to look for it at the moment, but there is such a machine, or similar, already on Dutch St. Maarten, as there was a picture of it in the Daily Herald.

A direct link to appropriate page is below. It looks like they have a number of solutions.

DESMI - Seaweed / Sargassum Handling Solutions

Here are a couple of pretty weak pics of the seaweed removal machine being pulled by a tractor on St. Kitts....5 years ago

Should have got some "before" pics....

This morning at Club O https://www.facebook.com/clubobeach/videos/930577051011536

He can dump all that back by the old laundry or boutique

And when it sits there fermenting I can imagin the stink. Yikes

Been here a week and had not noticed any seaweed on the south/southwest part of the island. Even commented to the wife after we landed that I did not see any from the plane as we approached. However......we woke up this morning and the first thing I noticed was the significant seaweed floating off of Maho Beach. Went to Mullet Beach today. You could see the seaweed about 100 yards out to sea but nothing came ashore at Da Watering Hole or Rosie's. Later in the day some began collecting on the west end of the beach. But it did not affect us at all where we were including out in the water.