As I was scrolling through surflines shaper's alley Santa Barbara edition, I was looking at the overhead of what looks like Rincon and thinking about why in the hell they don't just start making multiple points all down the central florida coastline. They could call it "Points of Interest."

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/shapers-alley-santa-barbara_72292/

I could see taking used road debri or whatever medium comes cheapest and outlining small points and then filling in dredge behind the solid outline making multiple points every so often instead of erosion jetty's like the one's in Bradenton. The outline of rock type debri would hold these sand points in place and put a stop to a lot of the side shore erosion. And new marine habitat would be formed in the process. Surfing, fishing, snorkeling, diving, etc. It seems that the Space Coast reef idea is bad for the dredgers, so therefore they'll rally against it. And whatever hurts dredging hurts the alleged "kick back" system and therefore puts a hurting on any real change because it doesn't make sense to the powers that be.

With all of the money that gets wasted time and again, over and over, on pure BS that has no sustainability anyways it seems reasonable to stop the usual plaid out dredging scheme and instead form a bunch of Points at extend out at least as far as just beyond the outside sandbars. The dredgers would still have a job, still make money, but there efforts would be put to a better use. The Joe Blow's allegedly taking kick backs for the dredge work still have an angle to operate from, if that's what it takes to get anything done.

 It's spring time, for Hitler, and Germany...

Wouldn't that disturb the natural flow of sand from North - South?

Not an ocean engineer here, and I'm all down for more wind protected surf spots....but just wondering.

^yes. it would definately affect the littoral flow of sand

Who cares?  South Florida Superbank!

...although it probably would destroy all the mediocre to occaisonally excellent spots from Jupiter to South Beach for a potentially EPIC (or epically diasterous) pointbreak like a lefthand superbank on north swells.

If that did happen, I couldn't imagine every surfer in South Florida being crammed into one break.  Wait...I could imagine it.  Oh God.

I agree that something better than constant dredging and loopy "go-nowhere" artificial reefs proposals needs to be done to end the ridiculous cycle we have going on around here.  Maybe just a few more long jetties with rocks and Army Core of Engineer constructed headlands to break up the sand flow or something

^ I think about that too sometimes. I can image if they extended the Sebatian northjetty to the size of Ft. Pierce or Ponce there would be one sick sandbar piling up.

But those long jetty's do affect the movement of sand. So much so that they've considered putting in a pump house at the northjetty to pump sand across to southbeach, in a similar way to pumphouse @ reef road.

I was thinking that the rounded angle of the points might be less severe in terms of actually allowing a decent flow of sand around the points rather than having an abupt blockage like a long extending jetty. But I don't know, I'm just speculating.

 It's spring time, for Hitler, and Germany...

You're probably right but you'd need something to keep a sand point stable though.  I can't think of any sandbar points that weren't keep in place by a HUGE rock structure.

natural sandbar points in cali all border huge rock outcroppings.  otherwise, the points are defined by reefs or countless cobblestones. 

Steamer Lane is reef.  C-Street Ventura is cobblestone.  For some reason, I remember surfing Rincon but I don't remember the beach or bottom.  I was wearing booties anyway. 

I guess what sucks is that point breaks are sculpted by millions of years of erosion and weathering.  Superbank got attention as a "new point" back in the day but it was always good.  It just didn't connect through to Kirra.

The best we can do is create a wedgy wave (ie...almost every florida inlet)

If you look at the overhead shot of Rincon you can see the rocky shoreline with sand behind the rock. That's what I was thinking about in terms of holding the sand in place around these points.

Instead of forming a regular jetty the rocks would be used to outline the shape of the point with soft curving lines going out past the outside bars to a rounded point and then curving back in towards shore again. Then the dredge sand would be brought in behind the solid rock line formations so that dune elevation levels exist all the way out from the dune or condo areas of the beach all the way out to the point. That would help block the side shore winds and give a protective cove feel on either side of the points. And like all jetty rocks they would taper off into the ocean creating a reef area all the way around the points. During calms times the snorkeling would be great and I'm sure the fishing would go off around these things too. 

 It's spring time, for Hitler, and Germany...

Originally posted by: tom  So, who's got deep pockets and time on their hands? Any 2ndlite lotto winners? tom

This is when people start charging for surf breaks. 

Originally posted by: tom Not that this has been discussed at least 100 times before, but it's always worth a sumertimeflat rerun or two. so, Piers, not points. Not fishing piers or tourist piers but "decapitated" piers. A double or triple row of cement piles with no decking set from about 50yds eastward of MLW through the sandbar and out another 50-75yds: 1. Traps sand and makes a "pier break", but doesn't increase beach erosion. 2. Provides structure, so acts as a FAD (Fish Attracting Device, really) 3. Is affordable (or at least more so than an artifical reef or point) and this is probably the most important, 4. Is environmentally "permitable". You'd actually be able to get permits to do this. So, who's got deep pockets and time on their hands? Any 2ndlite lotto winners? tom

That's interesting. So pretty much like the poles @ Ponce or Jacksonville but extended out to pier length. That's probably more do-able, cost wise.

For the points I was thinking more along the lines of road debri or native rock types and not necessarily importing granite or anything like that. Sort of like what they covered over @ 2ndlight. Remember walking down the rocks and concret debri back in the day?

But you know what, why not outline the points with sand bags? Just throw it in along with the dredge work. That reminds me of Wabasso. They toss sand bags in the line up but they could just as easily outline a productive shape out of the sand bags instead of just tossing them into the shore pound arbitrarily.

Every year down @ the jetty there's a buoy, or two buoys at times, that shut off a swim zone to surfer's. The life guards take center blocks and tie off a rope and buoy and toss it in just outside of the outer sand bar. And over the course of the year the ropes erode and the center blocks are left behind. The next year they do it again. It actually causes the sand to build up nicely around all of the forgotten center blocks out there. There's a distinctive split peak around the buoy zone that holds year round because of it.

 It's spring time, for Hitler, and Germany...

what about at the cape hatteras lighthouse?

There are three metal jetties that they call groins. Not really sure of the purpose, but im sure it has something to do with erosion.

In SC they have groins that catch the flow of sand and make for nice surf breaks. They have all rock groins and metal and concrete ones.  The metal and concrete work the best...if only they got more swell.

Serf Therapy

I was over @ the Bradenton erosion jetty's during Debby thinking about that too. Another place with interesting jetty's and piers is Galvaston. I shot over from Houston a few times and rented a surfboard. There's a fishing pier that jets out on (what looks like) a 45 degree angle to the beach with a rock jetty right near by. So there's an entire cove area of wind protection from various angles.

I guess the bottom line is that the central east coast is a very uncreative stretch of beaches compared to a lot of other places.

 It's spring time, for Hitler, and Germany...