Shoring Up The Shore, Pt 1

Our property is situated so that it bears the full force of the sea due to a gap in the reef just to the east of us.  When conditions are right (really, when they are wrong!), the waves wash out our beach and eat into the shore.  Three years ago, it was so bad that we lost 12 feet overnight and then kept losing more.  We hired a company to put in a sea wall for us and backfill with all the sand that had washed out.  They did a great job (I will probably blog about it one day), but they underestimated the ferocity the waves can sometimes attain.  Right now our project - and we always have a project - is to reinforce the seawall with a slightly new design.

View from the dock looking north.  There are several series of emergency sandbags we had to deploy.  The entire top tier of large rocks has fallen into the sea.

View from the dock looking south.  The erosion is not as bad on this side.

We are focused now on the north half of the shoreline.  Our approach is to lay Geotex construction fabric as a barrier to prevent the sand from washing out through the rocks and then backfill with river sand.  Our workers spent 3 weeks hauling sand from up the Monkey River.  They can probably haul about a dumptruck load or more a week.  Too bad we can't just call up Home Depot and have it delivered! 

The giant roll of geotex is 390 feet long, and we needed 165 feet for the north end. 

Giant roll of geotex.

The guys rolled out the 165 feet so that it would be more manoeuvrable off the roll.

Measuring out 165 feet of geotex.

Once they had the 165 feet of fabric situated near the shore, they began prepping the base by removing sharp rocks, filling holes, shoring up the seawall itself so the fabric could be placed its west (inland) side.

Discussing the most efficient way to prep the base layer.

Once the base was prepped for the first third of the length, they rolled out the fabric and held it in place with rocks.

Fabric stretched out for the first ~55 feet. 

Adjustments were made to the base and then rocks were placed to anchor the fabric in place.

The river sand is coarser and a more golden color than the grey sea sand.

Those 3 dumptruck loads worth of sand got used up quickly.

We wanted this first 55 feet to be a trial run before we did the entire north end.  That way we could see if adjustments needed to be made or if we needed to come up with an entirely different plan.  The sea gave us a test that night -

Before

After - very little sand washed away.  Yay!

Looks like our approach passed the test.  Just a few little adjustments before we finish backfilling with sand and we are good to go!

The guys will finish with the north shore before the end of the week and then start on the south shore.  The south shore will be much easier because none of the big rocks were dislodged.  I can't wait to see the completed project!  In the meantime I leave you with -

my stoney, but sun-warmed, heart.