Friday, November 13, 2009

Zee Boat! Zee Boat!

Before everyone's thoughts and actions turned to Hurricane Ida last week, the beach recovery effort over in Cancun had started. There is an excellent post about it here.

During the hurricane preparations and rough seas, the boat disappeared. I have no idea where they may have anchored it. I was secetly hoping that the thing was pulled out to sea and sunk. With no people on it of course. But, alas, this morning the thing can once again be seen passing by my house on its' way out to sea to ruin even more of the seabed for our local fishermen.

It passes so close to shore that I can hear its' engines loudly pumping away.




And a close up view.




I understand very well the economic impact to Cancun with the loss of the beaches. Again. But how many times can our fragile aquatic ecosystem go through this? Sucking up the bottom of the ocean, upsetting fish, lobster and shrimp habitats. Messing with, and sometimes ruining, the economic status of our local fishermen. So that tourists in Cancun can have someplace to put their butts. I get very angry and emotional about this whole issue of plundering our ocean just to get that almighty tourist dollar.

But nothing I think, say or could do will change the inevitable. Sand will continue to be dredged from our ocean, carried to Cancun and sprayed on the beaches to once again enlarge them. Only to be repeated again in a couple of years because Mother Nature knows best. And she knows that Cancun has screwed itself with its' building plan (or lack thereof) and will never be able to sustain these artificially created beaches.

8 comments:

Life's a Beach! said...

Crap!

Babs said...

Dredging to create beaches is done everywhere - not just Cancun - all over the USA too.
I'll ask my son, the wildlife biologist if that disrupts the sea life, he'll know. I'm sure there have been environmental impact studies done......
They just did a lot of beach replacement in Galveston after Hurricane Ike.

Islagringo said...

Beck: my thoughts exactly!

Babs: enivronmental impact studies? hahahahahaha! Don't count on it. Both the communities of Isla Mujeres and Cozumel have filed law suits to stop this plundering but they continue to pump anyway. Fishermen from the island are going out daily in their little boats trying to harrass the bigger boat. Somebody's gonna get hurt over this.

Anonymous said...

Thing is who are the fisherman going to sell their lobster and shrimp to if there are no restaurants to serve them or tourists to eat them?

Whether we like it or not Cancun and Isla Mujeres are founded on tourism, without tourists they will die leading to far greater unemployment, misery and crime.

Islagringo said...

anonymous: of course, you make a good point. Vicious circle, isn't it.

Calypso said...

If you build it they will come...or will they?

Tom said...

I believe restoration of the Cancun beaches was one of the first projects announced after Wilma-gotta take care of the cash cow, after all.

Anonymous said...

Cancun was never built around the sandy beaches. It was built around the beautiful Caribbean Sea and monster all- inclusive hotels. Tourists that stay in Cancun, stay for that reason ...... "all-inclusive". The bigger the better. If people are looking for sandy beaches, there are beautiful beaches south of Cancun, miles and miles of beautiful sandy beaches!
Keep the sea in tact. If not, other areas will be drastically affected.