The fabric is all in place and held down by river sand. The river sand has been spread out, but needs a little more work to blend it in with the sea sand. I am very pleased with how it is looking. Today, I have some photos of little red mangroves that we planted in hopes they will grow and spread to provide a longer lasting defense. It's a bit of a compromise because while red mangroves grow naturally on the parcel to our south, they do not grow along the shore of Englishtown proper. But then again, sea walls aren't natural either. Life is a compromise.
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| Those little tufts of green are red mangrove seedlings. We planted 9 north of the dock and about 15 to the south. |
Our biggest concern with the sea wall is that it is a barrier to sea turtles coming ashore to nest. I can sooth my conscience a little bit by recognizing that before the sea wall, they couldn't come ashore right here any longer because the sea had eaten away the sloped shoreline and left behind a vertical cliff. But what we want to do is to re-establish a shore that the turtles nest along. To that end, we are tryng out what I call turtle ramps. The ramps will require ongoing maintenance to keep them turtle friendly, but we can do that.
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| The turtle ramp needs a lot of attention before June when the turtles might start to explore potential nest sites. It is basically a low spot in the sea wall with a shallow slope the turtles can crawl up. |
We did have at least one turtle successfully access the area above the sea wall this past nesting season. I'm not sure if she came up the turtle ramp or crawled along the shore from north of the sea wall.
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| Natural beach to the north of our sea wall. It is very attractive to turtles! |
There was quite a bit of nesting activity to the north of the sea wall and I saw evidence of 3 successful hatchings even though I didn't see any actual baby turtles. We keep that part of the shore free of barriers such as fallen trees, washed up trash, etc.
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| Enlarge to see lots of little fishies in the water! |
The sea was sparkly and clear today, and the midday sun warmed the sand to toasty bliss for Barnie. A perfect day for us all.
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| Sundog. |
Kudos to you for having a praiseworthy environmental ethic. I hope that you mangroves are able to become established and provide a buffer against ocean surges and erosion. As for making provision for the turtles - hooray! Well done, Wilma.
ReplyDeleteWe try. We hope.
DeleteAmazing work. I’m excited to see the mangroves take off. Other than that, I’d be with Barnie.
ReplyDeleteBarnie has the right idea, for sure!
DeleteMany years ago GOB used large rocks along the road entering PG. They seem to have held back the sea for the most part. I don't know if you would want rocks that big at your place, but they seem to be effective.
ReplyDeleteWe do have some pretty big rocks, although probably not as big as those at PG. We had to barge these down from Placencia and the barge also had to carry a longreach excavator to position the rocks. Quite an undertaking - I'll do a post on it soon.
DeleteWe struggle with the same problems here. On our Gulf coast we plant sea oats to try and hold the dunes. Mangroves are protected and it is illegal to remove them on the east coast but I wonder how many people get around that rule.
ReplyDeleteMangroves are protected here too, unless you get a permit for their removal. And all you have to do to get a permit is grease the right palms. This coast doesn't have dunes. I do love the dunes on the dunes on the barrier islands of Georgia and the Carolinas.
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