Millers nearly a sand point!

The top of Millers point

The high spring tides and the big swells this weekend saw plenty of sand get stripped from the dunes running along Millers. This all got deposited out along the normally rocky reef and has turned Millers into a bit of a wannabe sand point. Although Kirra we ain't! The hiccup is that the sand getting yanked off of the dunes is pretty much lost permanently to those dunes....so our dunes are slowly getting smaller and smaller, with little chance of recovery.

The problem is there isn't any feeder sand replenishing them. Back in the day - as in 100 years ago, we used to have a full dune system extending way back into what Summerstrand is today - that just used to keep blowing sand onto the dunes and into the sea (check out the article I did on the old dunefields along our beach here).

Nowadays it's a concrete jungle behind the beach, so no more sand being added. So once the sand goes, she be gone. We would need weeks and weeks of hectic onshore to deposit new sand on the beach. So basically - despite beaches always going through natural cycles of losing and gaining sand - because the natural flow of feeder sand has been disrupted it means that our beaches lose more than they gain. So they, and the dune behind them, are getting smaller and smaller over time.

The solution? Probably need to reactivate the Noordhoek dunefield system that runs should run across Cape Recife and put sand back into the top of the back above Flat Rocks. This has apparently been considered, but not sure where things stand at the moment. Let's hope someone makes a plan before it's too late - and we have concrete walls running the length of our beachfront to keep the sea out.....

The graveyard section looking very friendly for a change