Healing Sands

Time heals all wounds, nature is taking its' course in replenishing the sand at Ocean Beach.

Latest report from the DCC over the Ocean beach public consent process over at my other blog Save Ocean Beach

Seaweek

While the essential theme of Seaweek continues with the call for each and every one of us to take responsibility for the seas around us - "It Starts With Me" - in 2009 we will be thinking particularly about what lies under the surface.

One of the challenges of marine conservation comes from the fact that we only really see what lies around and over the sea, rather than the immense scope of life and geography which lies beneath it.

In New Zealand this is directly relevant to all of us - the ocean is our front lawn and our back yard and we all influence it for better or for worse. - from seaweek.org website

The Great Dunedin Coastal Cleanup

Kaikorai Estuary Cleanup 1st March 2009

Waldronville residents Nic and Jay are organising a community cleanup of the Kaikorai Estuary in conjunction with the Dunedin City Councils 'Great Dunedin Coastal Cleanup" during Seaweek 1st-8th march 2009

Meet at: Sunday 1st March 10am at the carpark by the Kaikorai Estuary bridge.

Rubbish collected will be taken to Hancock Park, St Kilda (corner Victoria Rd and John Wilson Dr) from 12.30 to 2.30pm for rubbish weighing, recycling and disposal.

Please bring: Water bottle, sturdy shoes preferably gumboots, sun hat, sun-block, raincoat, warm clothes. Rubbish bags and gloves will be supplied. We hope you can join us.

Prizes: At the weigh in, there will be prizes, Seaweek displays and whale rescue demonstrations! Free sausage sizzle! Free face painting! Hancock Park Festivities start at 12.30pm, prize-giving from 3 to 3.30pm. Hosted by the Dunedin City Councils' great Dunedin Coastal Cleanup.

Kaikorai Estuary and wetlands circled in Yellow. below: An albatross choked to death by a plastic bag on Blackhead Beach, New years Eve 2008

Above top & left: Rubbish lining the Kaikorai Estuary, right: the Green Island landfill dump site at the head of the Kaikorai Estuary.
The Estuary has dealt with the dual impacts of long term waste disposal, pollution and land reclamation. The often polluted Kaikorai stream outflows into the Kaikorai Estuary, which is abundant with bird life such as Swans, Pukekos, Herons, Ducks, Finches and Gulls.

UPDATE 4th March 2009
Dirty Dunedin Lived up to its name
260 leaflets dropped into local letter boxes
- 2 articles in local and main Dunedin newspapers
- 3 locals turn up
- 6 foreign students from uni
- 1 townie surfer = 10 souls
- 1 overflowing trailer of rubbish -
Thanks to those who showed that caring about the environment is more than just cliche enviro talk!

Photos from Roxy Canterbury Champs

Hosted by Christchurch womens' surf club Tubular Belles, the Canterbury Womens Surf Champs day one began on Valentines Day with a glorious sunrise. 1 to 2 foot clean surf in light offshore winds promised some small but fun waves for the comp.
Sorry girls the pics took a few days to get up, I've been on holiday this week from work, and just wanted some time out. I didnt manage to photograph everyone, as I only got the still camera out when the finals started. There is however a mini film coming hopefully in the nexy week of the trip up from Dunedin with Hayley, and our "only spend $20 all weekend" challenge. Thanks heaps to Heather & Noel and Trish & Dave for their hospitality in offering us a place to stay and a good feed. Your garden fresh veges were so welcome Trish.

Above: the comp scene at New Brighton beach. Below: Hayley Coakes surfing her way to the win in the finals.



Above: Alethea Lock in the junior womens final
Below: Eve Welsh, in the longboard finals


Above: Heather Jones - Below: Geraldine Spencer



Above: The good men behind the ladies. Below:Kristi Zarifeh surfing in the Open finals



Above.. the after comp photos, and a final pic below: Eve, flagging a futile paddle.

Hayley Coakes - Open Womens Winner @ ROXYS

Hayley took out the womens open title at the canterbury womens champs this weekend. The comp was run in just one day in small but clean 1-2 foot surf at New Brighton in Christchurch.
When I get time in the nest few days to go through the other photos I'll make a more detailed post, also once the full results are published.

UPDATE 19th Feb :: COMP RESULTS ::

Roxy Open Womens
1st. Hayley Coakes - Dunedin .8.20 pts
2nd Leilani Morgan - New Bri .7.13 pts
3rd Kristi Zarifeh - Sumner .6.03 pts
4th Sarah Armstrong -Kaiapoi 3.00 pts

Roxy Junior Womens
1st. Kristi Zarifeh -Sumner .9.67 pts
2nd Emily Nicolson -Kaiaoi .7.47 pts
3rd Alethea Lock -Sumner .6.27 pts
4th Grace Nicolson -Kaiaoi .4.23 pts

Dakine Longboard
1st. Eve Welsh -Sumner . . 7.27 pts
2nd Trish O'Rourke -New Bri 5.73 pts
3rd Geraldine Spencer - New Bri 5.50 pts
4th Heather Jones - New Bri 3.07 pts

Shakes and Bob Scott @ Chicks

Away at the Roxy Canterbury Champs

Leaving this arvo, back Monday.
Good luck to everyone competing in the Otago Champs this weekend.
Below, some shots I didn't post from earlier last year:

Cam-Era Webcams by NIWA at Ocean Beach

Cam-Era – St Clair A

Cam-Era – St Clair B

Updated every 30 minutes... but unfortunately they seems to be published two hours after being taken.

from NIWA website
Ocean Beach is a 3 km long sandy bay in south Dunedin running from the St. Clair headland in the west to Lawyers Head in the east. The beach, located just 4 km from the centre of Dunedin city, is the main recreational beach in the region, being popular for surfing, swimming, and walking. At St. Clair, the Esplanade is popular with visitors for the numerous restaurants and cafes, while in the centre and eastern end of the bay the former back dune environment has been developed into sports fields and golf links.

The beach faces due south, and is exposed to the dominant south westerly winds blowing off the Pacific Ocean and frequent high energy southerly storm events. Sand is transported to Ocean Beach by a prevailing southerly current and the dominant southwest swell conditions.

In pre-European time, the Ocean Beach area was characterised by small sand deposits at the western end, increasingly large sandhills to the east, and a hinterland dominated by a lagoon and swamps. As early as 1876 sand was being removed from the dune to fill the low-lying hinterland to meet the growing needs for housing in the developing city. There has also been a long history of coastal erosion issues at Ocean Beach: breaching of the dunes producing sea flooding in the low-lying hinterland suburbs was reported in the 1880s and 1890s; a seawall has been present at St. Clair since 1888; and dune stabilization using brush fences and marram plantings was first started in the 1890s. These erosion issues have continued at periodic times over the last 100 years, with episodes of rapid dune erosion being interspersed with periods of stability and dune growth. The last major erosion episode occurred in 2007, when up to 20 m of dune retreat was experienced, and an estimated 200,000 m3 of sand was removed from the dunes and beach. As a result of this erosion, the DCC were forced to undertake emergency works to protect both public and private assets.

As a consequence of the 2007 erosion episode, the DCC have embarked on an investigations programme to better quantify the nature and magnitude of the coastal processes operating within Ocean Beach, which will allow better decisions on future beach management to be made. The Cam-Era project is part of this investigations programme, producing much needed real time information on wave conditions, movements of rip currents, and beach responses. Without the Cam-Era site, this type of data would only be available from irregular visual observations, photographs, and beach surveys, none of which are able to supply a continuous picture of coastal processes and beach responses.

Locals' Recent Comp Results

Congratulations to Jimi Crooks from Dunedin for his win at the Canterbury Surf Champs over the weekend in the Junior section, with Tom Bracegirdle for placing second. Tom won the u16 divison as well.

And to Leroy Rust for placing third in the U18 longboards at the Sandy Bay comp for the 3rd event in the Hyundai Longboard Tour.
There are no detailed reports right now, so I'll update this post as they become available.

Offshores at Dusk

Gale force north easterlies and a pushy south swell today. A haze hung over the horizon as the sun went down. Its pretty easy to guess where this spot is, although it is seldom surfed. When I downloaded these images I realised it had been two weeks since I'd shot surf, I've been filming instead. I also did the big job this week of backing up all my images and film which go on disc and external hard drives, I was running out of space on the externals so deleted another 7 thousand images.

Above, looking from the mouth of the Kaikorai Estuary towards Brighton.

Golden Hour Empties

It has been my goal for the Month of January to suceed in capturing a golden hour emtpy. An image of an empty wave taken in the hour just before sunrise or sunset. Well this month the waves and light just haven't lined up, I did try pretty hard though, so in place some past shots that never ended up on the blog because I was saving them for something special.
The image below was taken on New Years Eve 2008, just the day before the challenge started.

Above, taken during December the same evening as the Blackhead Silver post.
And below, a gorgeous sunset at the beginning of December, although not an empty, the waves the surfers weren't on were empty.


Above, probably my favourite golden hour empty shot, this was taken in the morning.