St. Maarten Private Eye

As shown in the picture above, they did clear some brush to survey the land, all of it in fact. The brown bare earth you see extends up the hill and all the way to the beach. They have stopped just short of the beach leaving only the sea vines and a few grape trees and they have also started to demolish the old restaurant without a permit do to so.

The situation at Dawn Beach is that the pond is actually two ponds divided with a road and culvert which allows access to the righthand side of the property towards Dawn Beach Estate. The old Dawn beach Hotel also had a walk bridge crossing the small pond with the reception on the other side. Roy Marlin's statement that the pond is new is false, either he is ignorant of that or he is spreading misinformation. I have it from an old St. Maartener who tells me that as a kid he and friends used to go to Dawn Beach to fish in the pond for mullet, shrimp and crawfish and that is used to be bigger than it is now. This same man tells me that he lived here in the old quiet days of the 60's and 70's whilst many politicians and their families were down in Aruba and that most of them only came back after St. Maarten started to boom. "Most of them don't know shit about the island" he said.

Anyway, about the ponds. There is a small one as you enter the property, then the bridge and then the big long pond that leads down to the beach. The big pond now has about 1 or 2 meters of foliage left around it.

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