Curious if anyone knows if the development north of Alice Town on Bimini, Bahamas has closed access to the pristine beaches. While they were dredging out the mangrove marshes and bulldozing the area, we could pass through to the beaches via golfcart. But, we noticed a large iron fence being constructed. Is this whole area, including the beaches, private to the development members only? Please advise and thanks in advance. Robert59

There's a gate which separates Bimini community from Bimini Bay Resort and also a massive concrete archway across Bimini's sole north-south road. Of course, developers say that the arch is merely decorative...can I laugh? That's really ridiculous. There's no doubt that they want to keep Bimini community away from the new private place. The gate will deny them road access to the north end of the island. To tell the truth the beach in north of Bimini Bay Resort is so awful, artificial, nothing interesting to see there.

reef; thanks for the update. One more pristine place ruined by grubby land developers. I feel for the Bahamian people...yeah, jobs...BS! Now, a foreign outfit has limited the local peoples movements. Personally, I think it's a shame the beach is private an not open to everyone on the island. The mangrove marshes have been bulldozed, to the detriment of Bimini's fishing, due to the millions of fingerlings which are spawned and reared in the protection of the mangroves. Thousands of future game fish are now gone. Robert59

Not to hijack this thread, but it's not just money-grubbing private developers but money-grubbing non-profit developers who are targeting the islands without regard to environmental destruction. Local governments have to wake up to the long-term detrimental effects of careless development. Reef has posted on this horrific tragedy before. Mangroves are one of the most important ecological biosystems on the planet. IMO, it is horridly short-sighted for the future of the local community and tourism. On St. John USVI, there's a non-profit outfit out of Florida which has engaged in questionable practices to secure approvals for a over-sized project which threatens the health of Coral Bay (one of the Caribbean's major watersheds) and a significant shellfish nursery adjacent to the development site. Despite proven instances of thumbing their noses at local rules and regulations, the local government has gone along with this because they're "non-profit" and the project is for "affordable" housing. They won't scale it back even a little because then it wouldn't be financially feasible... oh... you mean you won't make as many millions? Yes, folks, non-profits do often pay huge salaries to their executives (got to be competitive with the private sector, right?). When it comes to developers, give me the straightforward wolves and not the wolves in sheep's clothing.

Tuxedocat; Couldn't have been stated better. It's sad that all of N. Bimini is sealed off from the locals and from island visitors. Robert59

Forgot to mention. I have a video of the magrove marshes, which stretched for thousands of feet of of what's now a land development with hundreds of docks. The entire complex is entirely bare to the open ocean. The next bad hurricane surge will no doubt level much of the unprotected properties and condo's facing the dock. I wonder if an American insurance company is insuring the property.

I visited Bimini in 1990 and am sad that it is being desecrated. As someone who considers himself a small c conservative, I find it appalling that big developers who consider themselves conservative do so much damage to the environment. They are destroying habitat in obscure places like Bimini and in my native Chesapeake Bay, where the seafood catch is in steep decline.