Big Maho Pavilion walkways

I know we seem to be posting quite a bit on our crushed glass and concrete projects lately, but we have one more interesting development last week:

Once the Maho Pavilion area is opened to the public our glass & concrete counter tops will be on display, which we're looking forward to seeing. We'll also have a lot of our glass being used (but not seen) within the concrete walkways surrounding the pavilion area. All of our clear bottles collected on camp during the season get washed, scraped, crushed and melted to create works of art. All of our colored bottled and pretty much anything else glass gets crushed and put in it's own separate pile. Understandably this pile of crushed glass gets pretty big over the course of a season at Maho (thanks for drinking all that beer!). The National Park asked us if we'd be willing to use some of the crushed glass as fill for their concrete walkways, which we were more than happy to help with. Scooping crushed glass is quite a bit of work, considering each shovel full weighs about 8 pounds! While it's hard to estimate how many bottles or how many pounds of bottles were used for this project, we're working on it. We do know it was just about all the colored glass we collected for the season, and it feels great not to be putting it all in the landfill! (St. John doesn't recycle glass). Pictured below are two of our volunteers this summer, taking a break while standing on the forms and glass that has been distributed before the concrete pour. Pictured above is the same section, after the concrete pour.

More counter tops

Just a couple days ago we mentioned how guests staying in our Harmony units may notice new sink counter tops. Starting soon you won't have to stay with us to check out our new crushed glass & concrete counter tops. The new pavilion being constructed at Big Maho will feature the above counter top, and its big: this one weighs about 450lbs! It took 6 people just to load it into the truck when we moved it from camp to Big Maho.

The estimate for how many glass beer bottles went into this one counter? about 1,000! If we figure to have used about 100lbs of concrete it would leave us with about 350lbs of glass. If we then figure about 3 beer bottles per pound of glass we get roughly 1,000 bottles! That's a heck of a lot of glass bottles not going into the trash (St. John doesn't recycle any glass).

The two counter tops sitting just behind the big piece on the rack each weigh a bit less than the big one, but if you combined all three it would be roughly 1,000lbs of glass, or about 3,000 beer bottles.

As a side note: when we delivered the counter tops today the workers were painting the outside shutters on the main building (notice the red shutter in the picture). However, that doesn't mean they're putting the final touches on the whole project, not even close! My own estimate is about 2 or 3 more months.

Little Maho Dolphins

Apparently we should have trademarked our "year of the dolphin" tagline, because they seem to be everywhere this year.........2/6/11, 2/13/11

Captain Fred and Renee sent us these pictures today with the following: "We were getting ready for our sunset sail on Friday when we spotted what we thought was one..then two..then finally three dolphins in Maho Bay at our mooring. Woody was headed over to Francis Bay..we called him over and they were right between him and Pepper."

Those looking for more can search sailpepper on Facebook for video as well.

If you look closely in the distance you can see a couple Maho tents, but those with a careful eye looking even closer (click to enlarge) will notice a car on the beach at Big Maho Beach - something you never would have seen just a few years ago. Please Please Please don't park on the beach! Vehicles parking on the beach drip oil, gas, coolant and a host of other fluids onto our beaches and then into our beautiful waters eventually damaging our ecosystem, as well as damaging the root systems of the surrounding vegetation vital in helping run-off and erosion.

Beach Cleaning

7 of us started the day off right today, by picking up trash at Big Maho beach! The massive rains earlier in the month, along with the random usual trash gave us more than enough work for the hour or so we spent meandering down the beach. Most interesting find: a Lionfish marker, which means that someone tagged the Lionfish at Big Maho and before the National Park could come get the little bugger the current or waves washed the marker ashore and onto the beach. This also means I know what I'll be doing after work this afternoon........snorkeling Big Maho and finding that Lionfish! Most annoying find: lots of rusty old scrap metal. Once again I thank the 7 volunteers that helped walk the beach and collect those 4 bags of trash this morning!

Beach Cleanup

In honor of Earth Day on April 22nd, Maho Bay Staff members cleaned up Big Maho Beach and Francis Beach. Between the two beaches we picked up 6 trash bags worth of garbage, including over 400 cigarette butts! We also found half a shoe, a few pirate toys, and part of a park bench. Friends of the Park asks organizations and businesses to sponsor beaches each year. For as long as we can remember, we have been sponsoring both Big Maho and Francis which we clean twice a year. As walked down the beach with our bags, several people asked us in disbelief, "Did all of that came from this beach?" Unfortunately, yes.

On a side note, someone pointed out today that we take dog droppings and place them in plastic bags.......seems a little odd......organic material being placed in plastic....... Maybe we could just start throwing it in the bushes. A fertilized plant is a happy plant.