For those who have used it over the years, it has been a mecca for both national and international kiters and in the days windsurfers (before the kiters took over) chasing flat water with quality and reliable wind.

That said, having gone there yesterday, I couldn't believe how much the Pond is changing. The outer end of the "spit" must have grown this year over winter by 100-150m. Every year the council attempts to fight natiure and dredge the end so as to make way for the boat users. I reckon they have realised this is all in vain.

Give it a couple more years and if it keeps going the way it is that area will enclose and fill with sand. The water inside is aleady stagnant and full of stinky dead weed. Even the boat ramp is almost unusable as the exit to the ocean has almost filled in with the encroach of the "spit" towards the southern sand bank.

Nature hey.....

Time to build a new pond
Twiggy should pay for it.
Maybe 2 ponds, one north one south

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psychojoe said..
Time to build a new pond
Twiggy should pay for it.
Maybe 2 ponds, one north one south

Only two??
C'mon, aim higher!

One every 2km all the way up the coast.

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shi thouse said..
For those who have used it over the years, it has been a mecca for both national and international kiters and in the days windsurfers (before the kiters took over) chasing flat water with quality and reliable wind.

That said, having gone there yesterday, I couldn't believe how much the Pond is changing. The outer end of the "spit" must have grown this year over winter by 100-150m. Every year the council attempts to fight natiure and dredge the end so as to make way for the boat users. I reckon they have realised this is all in vain.

Give it a couple more years and if it keeps going the way it is that area will enclose and fill with sand. The water inside is aleady stagnant and full of stinky dead weed. Even the boat ramp is almost unusable as the exit to the ocean has almost filled in with the encroach of the "spit" towards the southern sand bank.

Nature hey.....

I think the council dug out a lot this winter.... before a big storm brought all this extra sand in. So, they were doing something, its just the timing that was out.

Some would argue they made it worse by digging all that sand and sediment up and dumping at the point only to be washed in by the winter storms. Timing wrong . yeh winter.

Here is a recent image that I found on FB that highlights the recent sand build up to the right. Just a bit further to the right is the shallow sandbar that has existed for years. It looks like the exposed sand bar is rapidly approaching this submerged sandbar with only a small gap for the boat exit. Would be curious to see what water quality tests would indicate within the Pond....not a lot of nutient flushing going on there.

From another angle...

Not that I drive past the Pond every day, but this year it seemed like that new bit of the sandbar appeared overnight. Maybe the trench they create for boat access forms a natural point for sand to get caught.

I think they had front-end loaders running back and forward from the point (before it changed) to the Carlisle street boatramp digging and trucking away the sand.

I suspect that the boaties in the area will have more say in what happens with this area so lets hope they return it to the way it was before the storms.

I learned a lot windsurfing summer afternoons on that little patch of flat windy water, especially around 2010/2011 when the spit was practically just sand. sad to see it finally reaching its end game for windsports. Glad the kiters got a few more years out of it though.

im sure the council will persevere with dredging the channel out. But it will just be the channel.

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Subsonic said..
I learned a lot windsurfing summer afternoons on that little patch of flat windy water, especially around 2010/2011 when the spit was practically just sand. sad to see it finally reaching its end game for windsports. Glad the kiters got a few more years out of it though.

im sure the council will persevere with dredging the channel out. But it will just be the channel.

The channel is right next to the end of the spit, so they will have to remove all that extra material that has turned up this winter. When I looked at the council website, it suggests that the latest excavation work was done in April/May.

I think that the worst thing could be if the council decide that the boat ramp is not worth maintaining and forget about any dredging at all and push people to other boat ramps. Certainly on the facebook site there were plenty of people (clearly not boaties) suggesting to 'not waste their money on dredging'. I guess its a cost of living in a coastal area. I can imagine that these same people care even less about a few hundred kiters and windsurfers.

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FormulaNova said..

Subsonic said..
I learned a lot windsurfing summer afternoons on that little patch of flat windy water, especially around 2010/2011 when the spit was practically just sand. sad to see it finally reaching its end game for windsports. Glad the kiters got a few more years out of it though.

im sure the council will persevere with dredging the channel out. But it will just be the channel.

The channel is right next to the end of the spit, so they will have to remove all that extra material that has turned up this winter. When I looked at the council website, it suggests that the latest excavation work was done in April/May.

I think that the worst thing could be if the council decide that the boat ramp is not worth maintaining and forget about any dredging at all and push people to other boat ramps. Certainly on the facebook site there were plenty of people (clearly not boaties) suggesting to 'not waste their money on dredging'. I guess its a cost of living in a coastal area. I can imagine that these same people care even less about a few hundred kiters and windsurfers.

Yep, all true. No good at all for windsurfers/kiters if they give up on the bent street boat ramp.

top spot filled in

and boaters turning up in droves at the other spots we've come to rely on.

Looking at the way the exposed sandbar is moving, it appears that it will either link up with the submerged one or cut in just north of the boat ramp at the shore line. Wondering if there have been any forecasted "scientific" studies done on this? At this point once it makes land, would it then fill in and become a stagnant pond or would it all naturally erode back to a shore line again over years.

Further north at Mersey Point they are having to do extensive dune work with rocks to protect the footpaths and roads from winter erosion, so I would possibly assume that this sand is naturally being dumped down at the Pond.

Additionally, the sand bar that is perpendicular to the main exposed sandbar seems to be growing and becoming more exposed every year.

From the looks of it, there is far to much sand to attempt to dredge now, but the biggest issue is where they would dump it whilst attempting to keep costs down.

Maybe with all of this sand movement, new sailing opportunities will arise.

From one of the documents I was reading they dumped the sand from last time in the Millar Rd Landfill (Rockingham tip). There was some mention that it was not going to be used for beach sand replenishment. Maybe they are worried that its not clean enough?

It makes you wonder what would happen naturally. Given that most of the coast is sand anyway, history seems to suggest it just builds up... Hello Africa.

The yacht club is now inland, so maybe there is no way to stop it naturally?

I was reading an article years ago about a river somewhere (Noosa?) where they were continually using a slurry pump to keep the rivermouth in the present position as it was naturally creeping up or down the coast.

Having only lived here for 2 years I am surprised how much the winter storms can strip the beaches, and then later push it all back. At one point there the sandbar/beach on the outside of the pond was very narrow, whereas before it was much wider. You went from having heaps of area to rig up to almost none as the 'beach' only extended a short distance from the vegetation.

I remember racing "around the island".

What island? You say.....well exactly.

...and I'm not that old

Just get a dredger.

Has everyone forgotten tides?
Water rushes through an increasingly smaller passage four times a day, hey presto, a channel is maintained by nature, or I'm just wrong again.

It can only be global warming I say.

Interesting pics of the sand bar in 1983

And then 1995

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psychojoe said..
Has everyone forgotten tides?
Water rushes through an increasingly smaller passage four times a day, hey presto, a channel is maintained by nature, or I'm just wrong again.

but in this case we are talking about a channel that not only filled up, but a new sandbar 'extension' has been created. The channel the council have created for boats fills up every few years or every year.

I think though for your idea to really apply in needs to be a narrow channel and no other path. In this case there is no narrow channel, and neither are there huge tide ranges.

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AUS1111 said..
I remember racing "around the island".

What island? You say.....well exactly.

...and I'm not that old

My neighbours told me something similar... 'there was no island when we moved here'.

I wonder if the council can dredge a few hundred metres back and make my house waterfront? I think this place would have looked like sand dunes before they built.

at least it keeps the great whites out

Can't find a pic that shows it well but it was still an island at high tide in early 2000's, used to be able to kite through the gap (or at least you could if you had a Naish Aero, woop!)

I'm sure this time lapse 2002 - 2012 was posted here before.

Google earth has more recent images

The increasing sandbar ocean side makes easy access for foiling into deep water

The pond 98, l remember when you could just about walk to the third rock,on a low tide along the sand spit.

My guess is Safety Bay will end up as a lake like all the others just inland behind the coastal dunes along the coast from Perth down to Bunbury.

Might take a while but presumably this has been going on for a few million years on and off.

the original gov survey of the coast in that area has penguin island as a headland and shoal water bay as a lake and another lagoon with creek running out into warnbrough sound . safety bay named new liverpool