Residents and visitors, acquainted with the once beautiful and relaxing stretch of beach at East Shoal Bay, are dismayed by its continued disappearance as a result of a steady onslaught of erosion of the sand dune.
Where there was once a large area of beach, decked with chairs, tables and umbrellas, in front of Gwen’s Reggae Grill, and an abandoned nearby massage facility, is just a body of sea water which is threatening to move deeper inland. The erosion of the sand dune has also led to the collapse of a cluster of stately coconut palm trees and, like the massage hut, with its foundation piles hanging in mid-air, the restaurant building is obviously being undermined as well.
“We used to have the chairs and the umbrellas over there but you can’t have them there anymore because the water is now against the building,” said Terry Webster, pointing some distance across the sea formerly beach land. “I think it is caused by global warming and the water levels are definitelyrising,” stated Webster who, along with his wife, own Gwen’s Reggae Grill.
Terry said further that the beach erosion “has had a huge impact on the restaurant, and visitors cannot relax anymore on the beach because it just isn’t there. Even the turtles which normally come up here to nest on the beach are affected. The chairs and umbrellas we had at the front of the restaurant are just sitting under the coconut trees over there, and we have another eighty at home as there is nowhere else to put them.
“The visitors from the various hotels like to come here to enjoy the view and fresh breeze from the east, but now they are hindered by the erosion of the beach which has been happening for the past five years. Luckily for ourselves, we got Greig Hughes to use his machine in the water to place these large stones in front of the building if not, by now, the restaurant would have been gone. I believe a large amount of stones placed farther out would build back the beach as the sand is thrown over the barrier, but we do not have the money.”
Out to sea, the once high reef is now completely submerged. “The reef used to be above the water but now it is beneath the water,” Terry said. “You could have walked from the building straight over to the reef and stood on it because the sand was all over there, but it is now some three or four feet under the sea. You now have to swim or use a boat to get across to the reef,” he observed.
The sea is also cutting its way across the sand dune at another area of the beach to the south. This has necessitated the owner of the Allamanda Beach Club property, lower down, to stockpile a sand barrier in the hope of stopping the flow of water inland during heavy sea swells.
The Anguillian asked Director of the Environment, Mr.Karim Hodge, to comment on the erosion situation at Shoal Bay East. His thoughts on this and other related matters are published elsewhere in this edition of the newspaper.
