The good, the bad, and the ugly: The good is the beaches are wider than they were pre-Wilma. The bad is that the hotels have moved their chairs down to the water's edge. When I inquired, I was told it was only because heavy equipment was still using the back half of the new beaches. We'll see in a week or so. The ugly is the high shelf leading down to the water. I didn't see this in front of the Park Royal, but they're sure high down south. Bring your scaling ladders. These shots were taken while at Le Meridien today. View North Towards Ritz Carlton View South Towards Cancun Palace Playa Ballenas The Shelf Looking North The Shelf Looking South
That "shelf" looks just like what happened immediately after the 1st job they did.. and as I recall it kept eating away until it was against the foundations of the hotels..... I hope were not in for a repeat.. didn't they build the sandbar/breakwater this time???? or are they being complete idiots about it again?
They are building a large breakwater at Punta Cancun which ostensibly is to mitigate the northward motion of the tides that carried off the sands last time. You can see the storage yard where they continue to deliver the concrete blocks just south of the party zone on the beach side of Kulkulcan. I'm not a geologist, architect, oceanographer or fill in the blank olegist-oleger, but I think unless they restore and augment the Mayan Reef, we will see the repeat of what happened last time. On the other hand, the natural restoration that happened post Gilbert in 1988 lasted until Wilma at the tail end of 2005, proving that you cannot second guess nor interfere successfully with what nature chooses to do.
My (uneducated) thinking is that Wilma swept away all of the long established and compacted sand at the beach. Anything we put there will be much easier to wash away by the waves than the naturally built up beach sand that was there before. An easy observation that seems to support my thought is the clarity of the water now as opposed to pre-Wilma. Today there is far more sand stirred up and clouding the water than I ever saw before the first beach rebuilding project. Before Wilma came through I remember being able to clearly see the bottom even on days when the surf was intense, now even on the calm days the bottom is an illusive sight until you get away from the beach. So my thinking is unless they build something to reduce the power of the constant waves action on the beach, it will simply wash out little by little with every wave. Building the breakwater at Punta Cancun doesn't seem like it would weaken the waves enough to result in the desired effect, but if the "experts" think it will, I guess we'll see... :icon_wink:
I agree with a lot being said here and in other places and forums. Of course we are all "arm chair engineering" here and assuming that we are the only ones who have ever come up with these ideas and the engineers working on the project and the Jan de Nul people need to consult us to get good ideas. I can just hope and really do believe that they have considered all of our wonderful ideas and have made good decisions based on their experiences. I too am curious to see how the breakwater they are building from the Dreams wedding kiosk out to the little islet will help--really how much it will help. Of course that first kilometer is always the first to go so maybe it will help. As far as augmenting the reef, it doesn't start until Punta Nizuc and runs south so that won't do much for the rest of the half moon of the Cancun beach. I thought some of the cement cubes were going out in the ocean but it seems not. Time will tell and I am sure we are all hoping that it will be for the best while secretly believing that when the sand has all washed away again, we will one day be able to say "I told you so."
I remember that Hurricane Ivan wrecked Cancun's beaches pretty badly when it swept by us up the channel before bashing the US. And that was before Wilma. I thought Cancun's beaches were in the not-so-great category before Wilma. I had not thought about the compacting of the sand issue that Life mentions. Makes a lot of sense to me. And I too noticed the sand in the water. I wonder if it makes a difference that this isn't normal beach sand here? It's crushed up reef isn't it? Not normal sand. (Yes, my science teacher loved me.) And that's why it doesn't get hot like a normal beach. And it's lighter, less dense, than normal sand. Seems to me that you have to account for the difference in density and other properties when you plan your beach restoration. I wonder if they have?
I had the rather dubious pleasure to read and review a many-thousand-page engineering tome that was prepared before the Wilma recovery program and YES, they spent a lot of time and money on sand size, texture, color and density studies and comparisons and then where it should come from, compaction times, wave studies blah blah blah. A lot of preliminary work goes into these things--believe it or not! And this time they have decided to listen to the company doing the work and added a maintenance program--that is essential. They have them in Dubai, Long Island, North Carolin, Florida and a lot of East Coast destinations. It is just the price of doing business in a beach destination in an area prone to hurricanes and with rising sea levels. Now if the Cancun Municipal government will just pay the $230 million pesos they have to pay, Jan de Nul will finish the work. If not, they are considering leaving it half done!! The government says the Bank, Banobras I think, not only wants the payback guaranteed with the beach tax money that the municipality collects every year from hotels, restaurants and marinas for the beach concession but also want 50% of the Federal monies that come to Municipality as an additional guarantee. Interesting--they have to pay now and haven't gotten the loan to pay yet. They are shopping other banks for the loan now. Perhaps "mañana!" Let's see if Jan de Nul will wait.
Jim - Glad to hear they noted the type of sand. I would expect a proper engineering company would. But you never know. Amazing that they have money issues at this stage of the game. That's an impressive oversight. Cancun = Beach in the eyes of tourists, so they truly have no choice but to fix and maintain the beaches here. Let's hope they manage to do that.
You are right. Never ASSume that they have taken something into account. Remember when they were building Cancun's first underpass at Colosio and Kabah and forgot to include drainage??? I too think that they have to fix the beaches and Greg has been doing a lot of road and park building lately with lots of money. Of course he wants to be the next Governor so spending money on populist stuff might be more important--at least to him!
Are roads and parks populist? I mean fixing roads might endear him to the populace, but truly, the roads should just be fixed. Fixing them shouldn't give you political points. And it's not like he's doing that good a job with roads. I dare say that many roads were in better repair under Chacho's time, though I know that Greg is paving lots of streets that have never had pavement before. (Can the city afford to maintain that many new streets when they don't maintain all the old ones now??!!) Cancun has a really low percentage of space set aside for parks from what I understand of modern urban planning models, so more parks here should, again, just be put in. It doesn't make him great to do things that ought to be done anyway, imho. One of the new parks is near us, and the top soil they used there is clearly from treated sewage. It's got all kinds of stuff in it that should have been filtered out, seriously. It doesn't smell at least (seems it was baked or something). And when they plop sod over it you can't see all the stuff any more. But I gained a new appreciation for all the crazy things that end up in sewers when I saw the topsoil they brought in. Wow.
