I wanted to shake up my life and go sailing (or learn on the job, so-to-speak) so headed to Florida to crew on a catamaran. This is about how it went or, rather, didn't - and my life since. Hopefully it will lead to a catamaran on the clear aqua blue waters of the Caribbean Sea, watching the sunset, a coconut rum and coke in hand. You must START AT THE BEGINNING of the blog, April 2009, to get the whole story...

Saturday, October 27, 2012

EROSION OF COW WRECK BEACH

As a continuation of my post from last week:

Here are two pictures that show how much beach has eroded at Cow Wreck on Anegada:

May 2012

October 2012

That is a LOT of beach, gone, in a very short amount of time.  There's barely enough level beach in front of the restaurant for the benches.   The photographer could not get far back enough into the water to match the exact angle on the October pic as the May pic was taken at - that is how much beach is gone!

The current owners of West End Cottages made this claimWe have not removed any plants from the property at any time either.  That claim is a half truth - no, the current owners of the West End Cottages have not removed any plants from the beach there, but the previous owner did and the current owners must know this.  They continue to assert that the erosion was due entirely to hurricane Earl.

Bill, an annual visitor to Anegada since 1979, had this to say: 

The entire northwest and western portion of the point was solid sea grape. And by solid, I mean you could not penetrate it on foot. At least 250 to 300 feet of those sea grapes were dug up before construction began to allow a visual and personal access to the beach. I remember the cottages closest to the sea being back about 300'.. about a football field back. That immediately began shrinking by 50' to 70' per year, depending on northerly storms and swells.  The sea grapes were huge and old and the only protection the point had from erosion. 

Another long time visitor had this to say about the conditions as they sit right now:

(What's) left (is) a deep channel near shore near the West End that has increased the strength of the west-running current along the north shore. I don't know when things will stabilize again to satisfy the new conditions at the West End.

If anyone has a photo of the west point of Anegada before the sea grapes were removed, I would love to see it.  You can send me a comment on here  (they aren't posted unless I approve them) with how to contact you.




All photographs are mine and not to be copied without express permission from me (click on them to see the large version).
Some names have been changed to protect my butt.



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