Beach Erosion: A Post Igor Reflection

[Written by Larry Burchall] Over the years, because Horseshoe Beach has always kept its distinctively elegant half moon shape, Bermudians may have become accustomed to the idea that Horseshoe Beach will be there for eternity. Perhaps it will not. Hurricane Igor’s beach mash-up is a reminder that Nature has awesome power.

I am not a tree-hugging environmentalist, but I do treasure the natural environment. Neither am I a punctiliously measuring scientist, but I do see and measure change. I do it empirically, but I do it. I reckon that beach erosion is a major Bermuda problem, but is also a problem that we mostly ignore.

Years ago, in the early 1960’s, as a young and fit member of the Bermuda Militia Artillery, I – and many others – regularly ran an ‘Assault Course’ that started from the western end of Warwick Long Bay, west over the waters of Johnson’s Cove, west across Stonehole Beach, still west and up the ‘back-beach’ to the flat area south of and above the car park, then down to a firing point 200 metres back from the ‘butts’ at the eastern end of Horseshoe Beach. Total running distance was a brutally tiring 700 metres.

After coming through the smoke-filled hole – now no longer there because it disappeared during Fabian – in Stonehole Bay, we had to pull ourselves up a short rope to the top of a cliff. I remember that cliff as being about twice my height – which made it about twelve feet high.

About three decades later, standing on the spot where that once-young soldier started his climb, I suddenly realized that climb was now about three times my height – and in three decades I had not shrunk. I concluded that, over time, the beach level had fallen. That piqued my interest.

That same day, I walked the whole course of that old ‘Assault Course’. It was true. All along the way, beach levels had fallen. Particularly noticeable was the back-beach transition from Stonehole Bay to the beach immediately west of it. I recalled that my nineteen year-old self had to walk uphill and then downhill to make that transition. Now, forty years on, the same walk was almost on one level with only a slight rise in elevation at the transition point.

I’ve walked and looked at those beaches many times since. Each time, I look and remember what once was, and I try to assess what has changed. And much has changed.

Most of Fabian’s massive 2003 beach damage seemed to have self-repaired. However, my unscientific measuring says that we got back less beach. My unscientific measuring also says that our South Shore Beaches are slowly disappearing. Certainly the disappearance of the ‘hole’ at Stonehole Bay, the loss of the high separator section at the western end of Horseshoe Beach, and the re-shaping of the beaches between Horseshoe and Chaplin’s Bay are complete changes.

Right now, Hurricane Igor’s damage will be readily apparent. Over the next few weeks, most of the sand that Igor has washed away will slowly return. Not all of it, though. Only some of it.

In other parts of the world, Hawaii, Jamaica, Bahamas, Florida, etc. where coral beaches like ours exist, scientists have commented on beach erosion as an ongoing problem. They seem to have reached a consensus that all beaches are slowly eroding.

Perhaps, post Igor, as you look at and use our beautiful beaches, you too will measure. But don’t panic about the bareness that you will certainly see over the next few days. Nature will repair most of that.

Instead, as I have done, keep thinking about our beaches. Keep looking, keep thinking, keep caring. Those beaches won’t last an eternity and they are changing and shrinking. So cherish them and love them and use them while they – and you – are here.

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Category: All, Environment