We've had success with something fairly simple.
We stacked rock under our pier in a sort of groyne.
It goes from the landing ramp area out about 15 feet.
It catches sand going either north or south, and seems to hang onto it.

Caye Villas has a lovely beach area and is just to the north of our property. For whatever reason the groundskeeper routinely takes not just the seasgrass off the beach, but a goodly amount of sand as well. The erosion from this practice was begining to spread to our property, and we 'd lost quite a bit of beach. I got the stones delivered and stacked and within about a week we'd relcaimed about 10 feet of what had eroded. Fortunately for our beach this is working well. The build up has progressed about 20 feet north. There is probaby some kind of mathematical formula about the length of groyne and lateral distance on which it has an impact. Anyway - this is low-tech, nothing like a sea-wall and it seems to do the trick.

The sand being eroded by wind is another thing. Ebbe's caretaker is wetting the sand with sea water and it seems to be doing a good job of stopping the Lawrence of Arabia sandstorm effect.

That sounds like the ticket Diane. The stone jetties at right angles to the beach like your rocks under the dock seem to work great it actually grows beach, and incorporating the sea grass into the landscape helps more than just a little with erosion.

folks down this way do the same thing with the little groins.
it does work at stopping the sand at that point but,, alot of people say that it cause's starvation beyond that point causing erosion.
the D.O.E. has actually made people remove their groins because of the erosion south of them.
we also keep the sea grass around for the most part. gives the sand something to pile up on.

edit: groin,, groyne,, jetty,, you know what i mean,,
D.O.E made them pull their groins,,,

You must have a good road to your area. Nice perk for not having good road, the government agency's don't bother us much.

You haven't had your groin pulled?

Ham String
Morning Jesse :-)

Diane, have you gained ten feet of beach or is it just that there is erosion to the south that makes the gain look larger? I have been thinking for a while about a similar project but was advised to put rocks in the same fashion, but just at water level, between high and low water marks and then cover it with sand (this is apparantly within DOE requirments without needing a permit). It then builds up sand where needed without causing erosion to the South, caused by the induced eddy currents. I was also going to get one of the compacting machines to run over the new sand to hopefully give the beach a headstart if any conditions such as the last few days crop up.

We were on AC Mar. 16-19th and the wind blew the WHOLE TIME!! We wanted to do the Bacalar Chico snorkel trip....maybe next time!

We were there last week of February, 2008 and it was very windy the entire time however this kept the mosquitos away. It was beautiful sunny and warm for first 5 days and then a storm front came in and left clouds and rain for 2-3 days.

yep march 16-18 had amazing winds. and waves. then much better weather the days after that. were those your only 3 days on ambergris catdance? if so, you sure didn't get a good feel for ambergris weather!!! that was crazy!!!