New Problems - Where Did The Beach Go?!

[ricki]

Hurricane Sandy impacted a lot more the SE Florida beaches, good luck to all those recovering from the impacts. Still, we have narrower beaches in many areas particularly around high tide. Some launch areas may no longer be feasible to use around high tide.


A beach in SE Florida this morning about an hour after high tide. The beach is still receding so this picture will continue to change.



The same beach shortly after Sandy with exceptional spring and meteorological high tides



This is a shot from yesterday close to high tide in Ft. Lauderdale about a 1/4 mile or so north of the public beach, I think. The beach is even smaller here than what is shown above. I understand waves were overtopping the wall and A1a again yesterday.



Things have changed, we need to change along with them.


1. If your beaches have shrunk, many have, check the tides before selecting your launch area. You may need to drive and walk further to kite, get used to it. Wind and waves can increase water run up and effectively narrow our beach use too further complicating things.

2. Crowding on the narrower dry beach will likely go up particularly on prime beach days. Don't rig up and launch in a crowd, walk or drive further to avoid this problem.

3. Solo launching and landing may be infeasible or not real safe anyway in some settings. Waves can complicate ditching your kite in the shallows, launching too. A launch or landing with side shore wind around high tide in waves may not be all that feasible or safe. Think in advance. A wider beach, even one further away may be the solution. Know when high tide is and about what your launch area looks like (this is changing even now) at high tide. Can you safely land there, even with trained assistance or not?

4. The level of difficulty has gone up with launching in narrow beach conditions and safety as a result has gone down. It can become an advanced procedure at some times and not at others. Newer kiters may have particular problems in such conditions. They need wide beaches in short.


Anticipate problems, think ahead and work to avoid unsafe conditions and threats to our access. Most access threats revolve around complaints, work hard to avoid them. Threats to access may well increase under these conditions, so look out for your privilege to ride.