Tourists heading for a stay in the Virgin Islands this year will have a mostly seaweed-free experience at one popular local resort due to recent investments made to combat the macroalgae.
Seaweed Free at the Ritz
The Ritz Carlton resort in the Virgin Islands announced recently that it has made a significant investment in the latest technology developed to keep its beaches mostly free of seaweed during next year’s peak seaweed season.
While most of the investment was made to ensure guests have a great experience at the resort’s popular beach, it was also made with a mind to reducing overall costs and labor of removing the Sargassum.
According to General Manager Cara Golding, the Ritz Carlton Club on the island of St. Thomas was spending upwards of $600,000 a season, and many labor hours, trying to keep the beach as seaweed-free as possible for guests.
With the investment, the team can instead spend their time making the rest of the grounds more pleasant for visitors to the island.
“It has made my landscaping team very happy…it’s a lot less work for those gentlemen who work extremely hard,” she said in a story on the subject.
Seasonal Deployment
Golding told the Coastal Zone Management Committee on St. Thomas that the resort only intends to deploy the Sargassum barriers offshore during the peak of the season. That would be roughly late April or early May through October.
This is to minimize the environmental impact of the barriers along with reducing the risk of any sand erosion on nearby beaches. It will also limit the impact the barriers have on guest swimming in the water.
In fact, the Sargassum removal process now deployed removes more beach sand than the barriers will.
In the past, workers started on the beach cleanup process at 6am and on heavy days needed to use two shifts and 12 hours to remove most of the Sargassum.
“We’ve had days where we’ve had 17 dumpsters full of sargassum that have been removed from the beach,” she disclosed to the committee.
High Tech Sargassum Fighting
The Ritz Carlton will deploy both Sargassum barriers and geo-tubes to block incoming seaweed from washing up on the beaches of the resort property.
Comparing them to “speed bumps”, the seaweed barriers will be used offshore to stop the seaweed from washing up on the shore. Meanwhile, the 11 geo tubes will also contain the annoying seaweed by being spaced 15 feet apart near the shoreline and rising three feet up from the bottom, creating a barrier.
According to Golding’s testimony, they are completely removable in the event that they don’t meet the goals the resort established for sargassum beach avoidance.
What Travelers Need to Know
The Coastal Zone Management Committee approved the deployment of the Sargassum barriers and geo tubes by the Ritz Carlton resort on St. Thomas starting next year as the season is already past its peak for this year.
The approval demonstrates again that local governments are willing to do what is needed to enhance the visitor experience for travelers, especially in areas where Sargassum is an ongoing and expensive issue for resorts and municipalities.
The sargassum barriers and geo tubes has been successfully used and tested in other areas with seaweed issues, such as the Mexican Caribbean travel hotspots of Tulum, Cancun and Playa del Carmen.
They should now be able to also make a difference for visitors heading to the Ritz Carlton resort on St. Thomas.