I still see people calling this a JETTY project and objecting how the unspoiled beach view will be ruined.
Was my first thought too, based on the title of the Thread, and posts on this board and others.
But that was before I read the proposal from the Sandals' consultants.
In a nutshell, here is the situation.
Because of where they are located on the beach, just south of a huge, natural sand-flow blocker (the Point Village land mass that separates Bloody Bay and Long Bay compounded by Booby Cay Island) it is as if they are on the downward side of massive natural jetty and the sand-flow to their beach is not as good as other areas of the beach.
Because of this, sand they have replenished their beach with in the past simply eroded away way too quickly.
They don't think they can run a multi-million dollar beachfront mega-resort without a decent beach and they can't wait possibly years for mother nature to swing their way and deposit it naturally.
So they either have to move to a better beach location - or find a longer term fix to the situation than just continually transplanting sand.
In a nutshell, here is their solution.
The plan is to put in off-shore underwater wave-breaks to keep the sand they are going to transplant from an off-shore site from being eroded away so quickly.
This is way better than the simplest solution - a huge jetty at the south end of their property that would essentially "steal" the sand flow from their downstream neighbors and ruin the view to boot.
To me, this seems like a minimally intrusive way for them to do it. I think we're lucky they have the money to spend to do it in a responsible way. A smaller resort without their resources would have probably gone with the cheap fix of a huge jetty we all THOUGHT they were planning.
