The idea of a marina in Anguilla is an exciting one and anyone who knows me well, knows of my enthusiasm for boats and sailing. There is no question Anguilla could use a good marina. The financial benefits to the islands that have them are proven, and I fully support creating one in Anguilla as soon as possible. The question is, what kind of marina, and for what purpose?
There are several different kinds of marinas. Some are fancy places to dock mega yachts while they wait between charters. Some are haulout and service marinas. Some cater to the liveaboards who want easy access to the shore – and rental fleets such as Sunsail, Moorings and Tradewinds with dockage. Some are real estate ventures. Some are sail enthusiasts destinations. Some contribute well to the fabric of the society they are encroaching on, or not. Some are built with environmental ethics and an eye to a wholesome future. And some are messy despoilers of society and the environment they take over. The decision is what kind of country we want to be left with at the end.
The Sandy Ground pond is a kind of magnet for folks who really want to do something, and it certainly looks like a great proposition when you stand up on the hill and let your imagination roam.
However, this proposal reminds me of when the government of Anguilla was approached, many years ago, by a group of investors who wanted to take the land between and including Rendezvous and Meads Bay, all the way down to the foot of Maundays Bay and Barnes Bay – from side to side of the island. Their idea was to relocate all the people in those villages, and between, to somewhere else on the island. It certainly may have resulted in a good amount of money for Anguilla, but the project was stopped because the wiser heads at the time realised that Anguilla would be displacing its own people, and selling out a huge chunk of itself, and forever. Not worth it.
When I look at the drawings and maps presented, for the marina in Road Pond, it all looks like such a great idea, a really prettily designed lagoon with a little modern maritime town. Could be a miniature city of Venice in Road Pond! I’ll be waterfront! My land value is going up!
But wait a minute. The questions start:
How deep are they making this marina?
At 20’, with the pond at an average of one foot deep and 120 acres, as mentioned in their document, that’s approximately 104,544,000 cubic feet, or 3,872,000 yards, if you think in construction terms, of mud. That’s a square stack of mud a quarter of a mile on each side and high. Where the heck is all that mud going? You know anybody who wants it? Oh wait, wait, wait! That’s only the depth for a regular yacht marina.
It was explained to us that the real money in yachts is concentrated at the very top, and that the biggest yachts are the target market for this project. So deeper then. Most, if not all, of the yachts in this class draw around 20 feet of water, and require several more feet of clearance under their keel, or underwater equipment, for safety. So a thirty foot marina depth then? Then, the figures for that amount of mud would grow by half again. That’s 156,816,000 cubic feet, or 5,808,000 cubic yards of mud. Think about that for a minute. Almost 6 million cubic yards of mud. That’s a heck of a lot of gas filled mud, people. Gas so strong, even the little bit of acid released from the salt pond, in its current state, can turn the paint on my father’s house grey when it gets bad. What exactly are they going to do with 156,816,000 cubic feet of mud?
I’m asking not just as a person who’s going to be impacted while it’s being taken out. As an Anguillian, what are they going to do with all that toxic mud? Exactly what? Where is it going? Are we going to let them spread it out next to ourselves, or someone else, for years, hoping to build on it at some point? Is this what they plan to use to make the town in the pond? How are they going to take it out without disrupting our lives with the toxic gas, lights, noise, machinery and exhaust fumes?
So they want us to put up with the creation of this giant industrial park next door, upwind? But where am I going to live when it’s all over? Where’s my home, my peace of mind? How do they compensate the residents and landowners for losing their peace, their quiet, their breeze, their fresh air, their night, their view through this process, and once this industrial town opens above them?
As well, a megayacht marina in the salt pond would suggest a 30-foot deep channel leading out to sea. Where are they going to find the depth for that between the Road Point and Sandy Island? About halfway to Sandy Island – that’s where. This is a fallacy of promises. Look up for yourself the draft required for the largest of megayachts and ask yourself if you think it’s ok if they have to dredge from here halfway off Sandy. And how do they protect that channel from taking the sand around it and filling itself in? You’ve seen for yourself that really big yachts come no closer.
How much ecological damage are we willing to suffer for this? Never mind the talk of pumping a thirty-foot layer of a hundred and twenty acres of mud out to sea. So then we are looking at a huge environmental conundrum where they don’t have any good answers as what to do with the mud once they’ve ruined people’s lives getting it out. There’s no way anyone should agree to pumping it into the sea and it’s just going to continue to be a bubbling toxic mess, for years, if they spread it out on the land. Do you want that mess up by you, above your house?
And then, Holy Sh1t! Not just the pond! The whole harbour plus outside!!! For a hundred and ninety eight years!
Why are we giving away the face of our country when we haven’t even tried anything that’s within our reach yet? When I heard of the plan for inside the pond I thought, “Oh my, another misguided attempt to put a marina in the pond.” When I saw the section of the entire harbour that is a marked off I was in shock. Are we so desperate that we have to sell our face for two hundred years to survive?
Let us concentrate on plans that don’t destroy our surroundings and way of life, and work on plans that help retain what we have all worked for over these years – what Anguilla is famous for – an oasis of peace and luxury. For visitors, but also for ourselves.
There are alternatives. We already have many fancy places to welcome megayachts, and they love them. They are called Road Bay, Crocus Bay, Meads Bay, Rendezvous Bay, Prickly Pear, to name just a few. If we install proper moorings we can make money off them while saving our seabeds from destruction from their anchor chains, and we win on two sides. But let’s not also forget that these boats leave the Caribbean from April to the end of November. The big piers sit empty in St. Martin and Antigua more than half the year.
In the meantime, the boatyards in St. Martin are full and running out of space for regular yachts. The boatyards in Carriacou, where I am now with Tradition, are full and expanding their acreage. Budget Marine has built a store. The harbour anchorage is full. Three new beach bars have opened since I was here last year, and long closed ones are being renovated and reopened. Little local supermarket, Alexis, has grown into something rivaling Proctors and expanding. A new Marine Engine Service business is under construction. Carriacou’s boat count has tripled in the last three years, and these are all boats onshore and being serviced for the next season. Boats that stay in the Caribbean. Hundreds of them on Carriacou alone, in the one yard. And the smaller, older, yard under the hill is packed as well. This is year round work for shipwrights, paint specialists, fiberglass specialists, riggers, sailmakers, mechanics, restaurants, laundries, accommodation, marine shops, groceries stores, fishermen, all without selling their soul and their face.
And isn’t this why Anguilla elected a new government? The hope that a good part of their goal is to get rid of the deceptions they called out the last administration for?
This development plan is nothing more than a real estate venture encompassing Anguilla’s main waterfront, the harbour and outside, and the pond, for one hundred and ninety eight years, for a seven point two million dollar buy in? Nice work if you can get it. Carriacou spent more than $7M buying back a couple of acres of reclaimed swamp from the marina development they signed off on after they realised they needed space for their own port requirements. Where is our value?
1. What happens to our land once the dredging is done to prevent it eroding into the pond?
2. How deep and wide is the channel pond to be dredged, and how deep is the channel?
3. What is the extent of the seabed dredging, and where exactly?
4. How will the village be protected in the instance of heavy weather and seas from the west against the risk of extremely high flooding from behind with a large open channel that the waves can use to pump water into the pond?
5. Is this an exact cadastral map, or chart, of where exactly the channel will run?
6. How will it be protected from silting in?
7. How will the Sandy Ground beach change due to erosion, and the possibility of being uncontrollably sacrificed, and refilling the channel be mitigated? For example, in the middle of a hurricane?
8. How will you legally insure the protection of the village of Sandy Ground and Road Bay beach?
9. How will you insure the protection of the business and residents?
10. Where’s the Anguillian ownership? The gift for the locals surrounding and impacted by this giant industrial plant?
11. Where does the poo go? This kind of project will need a waste processing plant. They stink and they pollute. Where in Sandy Ground are they hoping to build that?
12. What exactly is being done for the fishermen ? Has it been discussed with them, to their agreement?
13. Where does the giant fueling station go?
14. What is being done for all the boat businesses located in Sandy Ground and Road Bay? Moved to where? Protected how?
15. What exactly is being done about the private boat moorings in existence? Moved to where? Protected how?
16. What exactly is being done to protect the future local boat moorings?
17. What exactly is being done for those who may lose their traditional beach mooring places? Moved to where? Protected how?
18. How will this affect beach utilisation for fishermen?
19. How will this affect beach utilisation for residents?
20. How will this affect beach utilisation for visitors?
21. How will this affect all of us going in and out of the harbour on a daily basis?
22. What is being done to give Sandy Ground a permanent haulout place for fishermen and boaters?
23. Where is the haulout and boatyard? The travel lift?
24. Is beach use going to be restricted in any way?
25. Is shoreline use going to be restricted in any way?
26. Are there protections to keep the beach public?
27. What is being proposed to help Sandy Ground retain its welcoming village atmosphere, rather than losing it’s charm and being squeezed into becoming yet another sad and displaced combo of Simpson Bay and Philipsburg?
28. Where is the small infrastructure support for moorings, the haulout, the boatyard, the machine shop, shipwrights, paint specialists, fiberglass specialists, riggers, sailmakers, mechanics, restaurants, laundries, accommodation, marine shops, groceries stores? All these year-round businesses.
29. Where is the support for locals to create self-starting and, importantly, self-owned businesses?
30. Where are the projected beachfront properties going to be located?
31. Where is the complete list of compulsory property purchases so all of us in Sandy Ground know where we stand?
32. Did I read that the social contribution to Anguilla and our youth is negotiable? Is that it?
At the last meeting regarding marina development in Sandy Ground, we asked questions of our previous government and were promised answers at the next meeting. There was no next meeting. Then the AUF were voted out. Fortunately, the new APM administration held a meeting after the election, at Johnno’s, and promised there would be no marina in Sandy Ground. Right?
While the map shows highlighting around several properties, no one is answering what those highlights mean, including those around my father’s house. Why not?
No, really, WHY NOT? Is it because they are ashamed of their answer?
Why is this? As the Honourable Eddie Baird asked in his well thought out Radio Anguilla interview, “Who are these people?“ Apparently people who need to file their company registry in another country, which is owned by a company in another country, which is owned by a holding company, which is registered to another company, which is registered right in the same building in Nevis where the first company is. Or something like that. Whew! Glad that’s cleared up and we can all feel comfortable knowing we have some recourse if this all goes to hell in a handbasket! Or not.
And that MOU? Screw (Boo hoo) MOU. The “Definitive Agreement” they released doesn’t even have the blanks filled in yet. That’s no document. And the previous administration promised to get back to us with answers in the public forum. That did not happen. They haven’t the right to sign off on anything yet – certainly not until they fully explain what they are doing to our lives, and we say ok. Anguilla doesn’t operate otherwise.
We would be selling out one of the coolest little authentic villages in the Caribbean. Our own. This will only happen if we stand down and let it. We will not let this happen. We are not going to stand down. There is absolutely no reason for Anguilla to sell itself out to this degree. This is not some parcel of land for a hotel project.
This is giving away our rights and our gateway. There is no reason for this. If there is one of you, fellow Anguillians, who believes the rest of our Sandy Ground lives are not worth the dollar you can make, come and tell us why. We are willing to listen, and we will ask you to be the ones to help us find the alternatives to giving away so much – and our lives.
I can’t speak for all the landowners and residents of Sandy Ground – Teacher Leoni, Rodney, Ian, Quart, Carol, Gary, The Lakes, my sister, Lulu, Roni, Al, Taffee, and Ava and their brothers and sisters, Reverend Richardson and Aristo, Sherma, Danny or Vye, Dean, Ed and Raleigh and so many more of us. But I know that everyone on Anguilla can see it will hurt us permanently.
The only way this will happen is if the people of Sandy Ground let this happen. We will not. There are too many already discussed and viable alternatives, and too many reasons and long discussed surveys advising against putting this project into the Sandy Ground pond and, on top of it, giving away the harbour.
This is giving away our way of life, and the whole damn seafront of our main port to a foreign company, and we will never control it again.
Sorry. No way. We will not let this happen.
