Dune Status - Week One

Lori and I inspected the dune projects between Iverness and Bahia Mar today and we were impressed, even for just one week since we planted them. The strong south and north winds have definitely deposited some sand where we wanted it, already. Some notes –

Hay bales were the most impressive, some with large dunes around them. On the downside, some were being undercut or were starting to topple over because of the intense winds. We think they have a short half-life.

Christmas trees were good to fair depending on location, with a few almost being nearly covered by the sand (all had some branches sticking out). These dunes were much lower than the hay bales which were stacked 3-high, so they did pretty much as expected.

Snow fencing was interesting because none of them “grew” dunes at their feet – the small dunes called coppice dunes were growing in between the rows of fencing. The dunes were very wide even though small (by contrast, all the hay bale dunes were very short and narrow). We did not explore north of the Bahia Mar.

One thing I did notice was that several properties had wind and water erosion so bad the underside of their foundations was visible. That is not a good thing, in my mind. More work needs to be done. Oh, and a lesson we learned was that the dune-starters have to be about 20 feet apart so the beach tractors can get in between them.

Pictures to follow when we get some sunshine!