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I’m holidaying in Barbados with my family at the end of February/early March 2023. We’re staying at Crane Beach in St Philip, a world-renowned stretch of white sands. In recent years sargassum seaweed has been a huge problem there, despite best efforts to clear it.

I read on https://www.nationnews.com/2023/01/03/seaweed-back-shores/ that mounds of seaweed started piling up earlier than normal, at the start of the new year.

I’ve been to Barbados before and seen Crane Beach at its best so I guess I can cope with the disappointment if it’s not as stunning as I remember it, but it’s a first (and probably one-time only) visit for the rest of my family, so I was really hoping the influx wouldn’t be too bad during our holiday.

Has anyone visited the Crane area of Barbados very recently? I understand that the volume of seaweed deposits comes and goes with the tides and weather so the extent of the problem is hard to predict, but in general is Feb/Mar likely to be a bad time?

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    In my experience seaweed accumulation is highly dependent on water conditions, weather and the specific location. This makes it very hard to predict a month in advance. we had a really bad case last year in Mexico, but mostly because a few days earlier a large storm had come through and dislodged a lot of seaweed. It was already noticeably better a week later and it was much better just a few miles up or down the coast.
    – Hilmar
    Jan 13 at 12:32

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Answering my own question:

Seaweed accumulation was fairly minimal at our resort on the east coast when we arrived. It got noticeably worse during the second week of our stay, and unfortunately for the hotel their seaweed-clearing tractor seemed to be out of action, so efforts to shift the deposits by hand couldn’t really deal with the volume. The hotel set up a free daily transfer for guests to a west coast beach a few miles away, where there were virtually no seaweed deposits.

Have to say though that the Crane is such a fabulous location to stay the chance of a seaweed problem would not put me off from returning.

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  • Well done! Glad you enjoyed your vacation and came back and even provided an answer. Don't forget to accept it, please!
    – CGCampbell
    Mar 9 at 14:24

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