February, 2006

It’s been a while since I said anything about the reconstruction work in Puerto Morelos, so this report from Robert Birce of the Alma Libre Bookstore is timely.

"Puerto Morelos continues to make easy progress," Robert writes.

"Hotel Ojo de Agua right on the beach suffered a lot of damage but re-opened in mid-December. They just put water in their pool in the last few days, so are now pretty much 100 percent.

"The beach continues to widen," Robert adds. The photo (right) was taken on January 29th.

"The Ceiba del Mar and Casita del Mar hotels are still closed however."

• Pre-Wilma aerial view of the Ceiba del Mar

"Another hotel, Hacienda Morelos, will likely open by the end of February. The big all-inclusives, the Secrets Excellence and Sol Meliá …

A summary of the exchanges I’ve had with travellers over the past few days…

Dima Glushkov took this photo (right) poolside at the Riu Cancún on January 29th… "the colours of the sea were incredible," he says.

Katherine Welton wrote me a long email following her week-long stay at the all-inclusive El Dorado Royale from January 21st - 27th. The resort is located on the Punta Brava beach a couple of miles to the south of Puerto Morelos.

"With the exception of the palm trees, you’d never know that there had been a hurricane," Katherine wrote. 

Earlier in January, Rebecca Lupton stayed at the same resort. She echoed Katherine’s observations: "Roughed-up palm trees told the story [of the hurricane] to those who were looking for it, but otherwise our resort looked pristine."

• Pre-Wilma aerial view of the El Dorado Royale

While …

A couple of days ago, waves lapped against the hotel boundary wall. But yesterday it was the turn of guests lounging around the Crown Paradise pool to marvel at the fevered activity on the beach. 

The ‘Filippo Brunelleschi’ has been toing and froing between the area where the sand has accumulated in banks on the seabed, and Cancún where the vacuumed sand is pumped onshore.

According to Sunday’s edition of Novedades, the dredger makes five round trips over a 24-hour period.

Two bulldozers have the task of distributing the fresh sand uniformly along the beach - at a rate of 200 metres a day.

Cancún-based Grupo Anderson’s flagship restaurants Carlos ‘n Charlie’s and Señor Frog’s are magnets for tourists staying in resort.

Carlos ‘n Charlie’s, pictured here on January 22nd, welcomed back the punters two days earlier, while Anderson’s hope Señor Frog’s will re-open before the end of February.

Further down the coast in Playa del Carmen, the Blue Parrot Beach Club will be back up and partying today - minus palapa roof - following the fire that gutted the structure on January 20th.

The three Blue Parrot hotel properties - all of which are 100-300m from the Beach Club - were undamaged and have been fully operational since shortly after Wilma.

Sand, sand, glorious sand…

Jan De Nul’s managing director, Marc Verhaert, Mexico’s Tourism Secretary, Rodolfo Elizondo Torres and Quintana Roo state Governor, Félix González Canto, were all present at a brief ceremony held on Playa Delfines this morning.

At 10:30am, Cancún time, Elizondo symbolically dio el ‘banderazo’ - waved the flag - to signal for the sand pumping to start.

There was a momentary hush as the 22-inch pipe belonging to the Belgian maritime engineering group first spewed out a mouthful of murky water. This was quickly replaced by cheers and applause as the first recycled sand gushed onto terra firma.

Many thanks to Jim Wehrle who was on the spot shortly afterwards to capture these neat hills of ‘reclaimed’ sand along this section of beach, just south of the Hilton hotel.

• View more of Jim’s photos

Jan De Nul expect to dredge around 2.7m cubic metres …