Time and tide wins round one at the Inverloch Surf Beach
Today was a day when the ocean flexed its muscles at the Inverloch Surf Beach and took back much of the sand dredged from Anderson Inlet by contractors for the Gippsland Projects Team. See video and details:
TODAY was a day when the ocean flexed its muscles at the Inverloch Surf Beach and took back much of the sand dredged from Anderson Inlet by contractors for the Gippsland Projects Team.
Despite building up a nice pile of sand at the Ozone Street end of the surf beach in the three or four days since Hall Contracting, working in conjunction with the regional office of the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA), started its sand dredging and pumping works last Monday, much of it was gone by Thursday afternoon.
A high tide of 2.8 metres at the Inverloch Surf Beach on Thursday, June 4 combined with strong winds and a reasonable swell has undone much of the sand replacement work being undertaken by contractors for DEECA while also inflicting further damage on the dunes between Ozone Street and the Inverloch Surf Lifesaving Club.
Like a proud sandcastle standing against a rising tide and a relentless swell, the handsome pile of sand was steadily whittled away by the constant pressure of the waves which also cut deeply into the dunes between Ozone Street and the surf lifesaving club, and on the other side, as far as Wreck Creek.
It had visitors to the beach, possibly alerted by the Bureau of Meteorology in their daily forecast to the potential for “inundation” at Inverloch as a result of high tides, strong winds and rising swell, shaking their heads.
“You can’t beat the ocean. It’s just a waste of money pumping all this sand out only to see it swept away by the first storm surge, and not a big event at that,” was the typical sentiment.
Will DEECA’s contractors beat the power of the ocean long enough to achieve their task of landing 100,000 cubic metres of sand on the beach over the next three to four weeks or are their fighting a losing battle?
And even if they do get the sand on to the beach and up to the degraded dunes, how long will it last?
Everyone can understand what happens to a child’s painstakingly constructed sandcastle when the tide comes in… why is this exercise any different?
The modest high tide of 2.8 metres peaked at the Inverloch Surf Beach at 2.45pm on Thursday, June 4, by which time the winds had backed off from as much as 60km/h overnight, from Wednesday into Thursday, to between 20km/h and 15km/h by high tide time. There was about a metre of swell.
