USVI-On-Line

Just to keep it clear that we are not talking about big Maho, where the road runs along the beach (that land has some ownership situations of its own), but Little Maho, the present campground land only.
The owners have never lived on St John, and bought it post-Park, but during the many years that the Park did not acquire any of the land that came up for sale within the boundaries. If it were not for the Trust for Public Land, they probably still would not have acquired much of any land by purchase since the early 1970's.
Caneel, the Westin, and innumerable other USVI and BVI resorts have reverse osmosis plants. Maho campground has always bought R/O water by the truck-load from the WAPA facility in Cruz Bay (not so green, after all). Getting a permit for the discharge of brine into NPS waters would probably be difficult. Caneel's discharge has had severe effects on the surrounding sea life. Many chemicals more harmful than salt tend to get discharged along with the brine.
If they are indeed getting $400,000/year on the lease, they would be very foolish to give that up. I can't see anyone sane paying more than $10 million for the foreseeable future, and even that is a stretch.

It would break my heart to see a luxury resort in Maho.
Come one everyone play the Powerball tonight!

Thanks for the well-detailed answer, hugo. I guess you well-articulated what I was thinking...

Glass Studio Video

Today my email contained the most recent Maho Bay Camps newsletter which follows.

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/36178298? ... lor=ffffff" width="974" height="548" frameborder="0"></iframe>


"(No Jellyfish were harmed in the making of this video)

Wow. That is all we can say. Banana Tree Films on St. Thomas is working on a documentary called Borrowed Time. It is fiscally sponsored by the non-profit International Documentary Association. This video on the Glass Studio is just the beginning of a multi year project to document Maho's history and closing. We will certainly be letting everyone know more about the project as it unfolds.

From the documentary website (www.mahodoc.com):

This is the story of Maho Bay.

Maho Bay Camps are living on borrowed land and borrowed time. Can the world’s first Eco-tourism resort—just disappear?

Witness the last year of Maho’s existence, where devoted guests, staff and community struggle with saying goodbye to this special place in paradise.

This documentary pays tribute to Maho Bay Camps, a special and humble place. The story also seeks to inspire conservation, preservation, and simply a more responsible way of life and travel.


If you would like to offer support to the film, you can visit their website and follow the Support the Film link on the left."

Thanks for posting the video lprof! I'm heading to Maho in May & now know how I'm spending a day. The glass shop looks great!

Great video, Iprof. Thank you for sharing it. It brings back a lot of memories of our 3 stays at Maho Bay Camps. I have many beautiful glass treasures from our trips. Watching the glass blowing was always one of the highlights of staying at Maho. I have often wondered if they will have a glass studio at Concordia?

Thanks to Banana Tree Films for some really nice work! I'm in their biz and I was very impressed and enjoyed their storytelling and cinemaphotography.