As most of you may already know, the Gene Simmons Family Jewels Reality TV Show recorded their sixth season finale and one of their biggest moments ever right here on the shorelines of Belize.

We find it imperative to take this time to personally thank each and every one of you: every advertising partner, tour operator, hotelier, restauranteur, taxi driver, airline, and every other individual and company, who helped in one way or another to make this venture a resounding success, says a press release issued today by the Belize Tourist Board.

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011, will forever be etched in history as the day when over 3 million viewers of A&E’s top reality television series, watched as Mother Nature’s Best Kept Secret proved it is the world class destination we know it to be. According to Google trends, during and immediately after the show, Belize was actually ranked number one: the most “Googled” word on the Internet! Real estate agents we have interviewed in Belize report having a much higher than usual volume of inquiries from prospective home buyers from North America interested in Belize Real Estate.

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Mexico's Valentina Cervera Avila is the new Reina de la Costa Maya Belize 2011

Miss Mexico, Valentina Cervera Avila has won the Miss Reina de la Costa Maya international beauty pageant held last night in San Pedro, Ambergris Caye Belize.

The delegate from Mexico easily beat out other contestants from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Belize. Apart from cash and other prizes, Valentina won an appearance in an independent Hollywood production – the first time this opportunity has been offered as a prize in this contest.

The fist runner up is  Miss Nicaragua Gisselle de los Angeles Alvarez Ramirez and second runner up is Miss Honduras Linda Beatrice Kennett.

Hosting the pageant this year was U.S. Cable TV personality Sandra Hoyos from the Telemundo show Al Rojo Vivo.

This is the 20th anniversary of Costa Maya Festival, an event established to help Ambergris Caye get through the traditionally slow summer months when tourism arrivals are their lowest. The festival brings together Central American countries in Belize for a week of music concerts, dances, cultural presentations and the beauty pageant.

The new Reina de la Costa Maya Queen Valentina loves beauty pageants, literature, sports, movies and technological advances. She is a TV and Events host, Walk Way Model, and Photo Model.

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Central America beauties competing in the Belize Costa Maya Pageant

The contestants for the annual Belize Costa Maya Pageant has been in Belize over the past week taking part in social activities and photo opportunities prior to the contest scheduled for Friday night.

Among other events, the delegates from Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama have gone snorkeling at the Hol Chan Marine Reserved, undersea trekking, swimming with sharks, and a hosted a Noche Tropical at Ramon’s Reef Resort.

The beauties are now preparing for the grand Reina de la Costa Maya pageant on Friday, August 5th at the Old Football Field in San Pedro Town, Ambergris Caye.

Belize’s Badih Bounahra at World Series Of Poker championsip in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Belize gained world attention following last night’s World Series of Poker championship in Las Vegas where Belizean Badih Bounahra climbed to sixth spot and earned the right to compete in the coveted finals on November 5th. In the World Series of Poker Hold ‘Em Championship, Badih Bounahra was one of over 6,000 players who signed up for the tournament and now finds himself in the top five of the remaining players for the finals.

Badih Bounahra’s family owns the Mirab Stores in Belize City and his brother Pierre Bounahra told the media in Belize that since Badih made it into the top six he is guaranteed to return to Belize with at least half a million dollars. This is Badih’s seventh year of playing at the World Series of Poker. The final poker table takes place on November fifth.

Badih Bounahra – 2011 WSOP Poker Player Profile

Badih Bounahra will record his second WSOP cash during the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event. His first came in 2008, when he finished 51st in a $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event for $7,500. Talk about a repeat performance!

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Belize is hosting twenty top marine scientists from around the world this week in Belize City to review the status of the country’s marine biodiversity and the potential impacts that oil exploration and drilling could have on the local marine ecology.

The University of British Columbia’s Fisheries Centre and its Sea Around Us Project, in partnership with Oceana in Belize, will host the two-day Marine Conference on June 29th and 30th, 2011 at the Biltmore Hotel, from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., under the Theme “Too Precious for Drilling: The Marine Bio-Diversity of Belize.”

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As the government makes its latest moves at expropriating the privately held Belize Electricity Limited, we take time to look at solar power generation. Solar power systems are popular here with expats and retirees that often choose to live off grid and off the beaten track so as to enjoy a more tranquil environment, and also to avoid exorbitant electric utility bills.

Our correspondent Mr. Mark Miller has contributed an excellent primer on grid-tied solar power systems and the advantages this system offers for power generation in Belize.

Belize is a growing eco-tourism destination with beautiful natural resources and plenty of sunshine. It’s the sunshine that we can use to develop grid-tied solar power to reduce our heavy reliance on imported electricity powered by diesel and other fossil fuels, enhance our tourism industry, our economy, the reliability of our electric grid, and our sovereignty as a nation.

Solar Power has two basic forms – heat and photovoltaic. Photovoltaic means that the solar power is converted to electricity. 1 direct use such as water pumping or running a fan only when the sun shines 2 remote systems that use batteries for power storage so that power is available when the sun does not shine, and 3 grid tied systems complement the power company’s other generation sources.

A grid-tied solar system is made up of solar panels that turn light into DC electricity with fuses and circuit breakers for safety, a grid-tied inverter, and one or two electric meters to facilitate feeding your solar energy into the power company’s system, in this case, that of Belize Electricity Ltd. (BEL). These systems are very common throughout the world.

It is more efficient to be hooked into the utility grid because off-grid systems must store the energy in batteries which lose energy and need regular replacement. If you are on the grid, the utility system keeps track of the kilowatts you use. In a grid-tied system the electricity produced from solar panels lowers the amount of kilowatt hours you need to buy from BEL. During bright sun, you can produce more energy than you consume, so you are effectively selling electricity to BEL.

If your system has one meter, it is called net-metering, because the meter rungs in both directions and at the end of each month, simply tells you whether you bought or sold more power. Net metering is beneficial to consumers as you effectively get the same sales price as you pay. However net metering does not adequately pay BEL for the use of their grid, so they need to make up that cost elsewhere on the system.

If your system has two meters, one records your sales to the power company, and one records your purchases from the power company. This allows two different prices to be set for the price of power.

The cost of bringing electricity to your home can be broken into three components: transmission – the moving of large amounts of high voltage power to key points around the country; distribution – the moving of medium voltage power into neighborhoods; and generation – the making of the electricity.

As a solar grid-tied system is a generation systems if definitely competes with the imported electricity from Mexico. It also has distinct advantages over the power from our friendly neighbor. Grid-tied systems are generally sized to produce near the amount of electricity that a home or business uses every month. For homes this may a systems up to 10 kW, and for hotels, resorts, large farms and other business somewhat bigger than that based on their power usage. As this places many small solar systems around the country, the power generation is said to be distributed. This is advantageous to the electric utility company as less power needs to be transmitted to the various distribution networks, thus saving some transmission costs.

Another advantage of grid-tied solar is that the power is produced when the sun shines, which is the same time when our electricity use is at its highest, as businesses and tourist destinations have their air conditioning running most when it is hottest. It is as these times when we need to purchase the most power from Mexico, and the power from Mexico is more expensive than the power from our in-country sources such as the hydro-electric dams.

Remember any time we send money to another country is hurts Belize’s balance of trade and weakens our economy. Grid tied solar can help us be more independent and better placed in the world marketplace.

Our tourism industry is based primarily on our beautiful sea, rivers and forests. Solar power can play an important role in improving the marketing of this important segment of our economy. Solar power does not produce greenhouse gases, thus Belize can send a message to the more developed countries of the world that we are concerned about our global climate change, and if we can take this step, surely the wealthier countries can do even more.

Grid-tied solar power is not cheap to establish; it represents a significant investment for the home or business owner. But is is an investment that can pay for itself over many years, thus saving money over time. We encourage Belize Electricity Ltd. And the government of Belize to start allowing and promoting grid-tied solar power for homes and businesses. By Mark Miller. Southern Solar Solutions solarbelize at gmail.com