More resilient, better construction

Nestled in the heights of Morne Acouma overlooking the picturesque Soufriere Bay in the southwest of Dominica lies the island’s newest eco-resort.

Jungle Bay Eco Villas reopened to guests in July, nearly four years after the original property was destroyed by Tropical Storm Erika. It has moved from its previous location on the southeast of the island, to the southwest, overlooking the Soufriere Bay. At the moment 30 rooms have been opened to guests under the first phase of construction.

The second phase is already underway and when completed there will be 85 rooms available on the property, which sits on 19 acres of land.

“We wanted to build in a more resilient way than we were at the old site. Of course, the old site had some very interesting, very unique features, and we wanted to keep those things but we wanted to make sure that we rebuilt learning the lessons from the tropical storm.

“The engineering behind it is very sound. Of course, nothing is hurricane-proof from the type of hurricanes that we have been seeing lately. But this one is certainly able to withstand a good punch,” proprietor Sam Raphael told Barbados TODAY.

Jungle Bay provides an escape for guests who are into health and wellness, including yoga and meditation. “We hosted a lot of wellness retreats and a lot of eco-friendly visitors that want to come and explore the hidden secrets of Dominica, explore hidden waterfalls… they want a very active vacation to do hiking and diving and kayaking and all the outdoor adventure stuff,” he said.

“We don’t want to change who we are too much because we have our niche and we’re very successful at it. Right now, we’re just trying to get back to where we were in terms of staff development and getting our repeat clients back and making a name for ourselves at this new location.”

Jungle Bay was rebuilt with funding from Dominica’s Citizenship by Investment Programme. But Raphael admits that rebuilding the popular resort was no easy feat, and he faced several setbacks.

“It was a bit challenging putting the whole financing together… and then, even so, in the middle of the reconstruction, we got hit with another hurricane, Hurricane Maria, that posed some challenges.

“Because we were under construction, we didn’t have too much damage per se, but we didn’t have available workers because of the hurricane and all the reconstruction demand right after the hurricane. So we ended up having to import some carpenters from Guyana, stone masons from as far north as Haiti. Fortunately, we were able to find everyone in the CARICOM area,” he stated.

He is however impressed with the pace at which the island has recovered from Hurricane Maria in a space of two years.

“The reconstruction of Dominica has been an interesting thing to look at and to be a part of. I don’t think that anyone thought that we would be back where we are in such a short period of time or we’d have the infrastructure of the island almost completely rebuilt even better than it was before in a two-year period.

“This is, for an independent country that doesn’t have a great supporting host like the United States or the EU behind it, I think it’s phenomenal. So the government, the people of Dominica have worked diligently. I think maybe Dominicans are just resilient in nature and so we got together and worked on rebuilding the island and the results are there for all to see.

“So I think you have to give tremendous credit to all those who played a part in the rebuilding of the island. And it’s still ongoing, but I’d say Dominica is a far better place and it’s gonna be a far better place than it was before the storm,” he said. (MCW)