I have been doing a little volunteer work for the past two weeks. I am in knee-deep in waters with My Traveling Feet stomping on Sargasso (seaweed) that has been invading the beaches on Ambergris Caye. My feet’s mission is to assist a group of community- minded individuals to Build-A-Beach while tackling the unsightly and smelly situation the Sargasso creates.
Rather than removing the Sargasso, that also removes valuable sand from the beach, Dimas Guerrero found a process that actually builds up the beach while eliminating the Sargasso on site.
Yup! the Sargasso is gathered, spread out on the beach to dry, then buried in holes dug along the beach. The process uses the sargasso as landfill on the beach; the sand from the filled holes covers it and the rest is spread over the beach area.
It’s not an easy process, it’s labor intensive, but if the project gets enough volunteers it can go much faster. Dimas Guerrero is doing a great job at showing the community how this process can deliver a positive outcome from something that, well seems negative.
The location of the beach is in north Ambergris Caye, a stretch of beach just off the turn from the road past Las Terrazas/Journey’s End properties. It is being conducted there as a model for others to see and organize their own beach-building projects at various other locations.
I invite you to come volunteer a couple hours on Sunday so you can see how the project works and get a better idea on how it is something positive for the island. The volunteers meet at the south end foot of the bridge at 10a.m. and then travel to the site. Hope to see you all out there; please bring rakes, pitch forks, shovels and hoes if you have them!
Click to Read more on the Build-a-Beach campaign Build A Beach Campaign
Cleanup volunteers pick up sargasso along the water onto the beach
The beach area before the volunteers arrived
Definitely need more volunteers with all that sargasso; Oceana please send more volunteering feet!
With the sargasso cleared and buried, the beach begins to show
One of the sea creatures we encountered living in the sargasso
