Sand above, sand below. Photo: Dylan Graves // YouTube
To witness the birth of a wave in real time is an incredibly rare opportunity. Of course, if anyone was going to do it, it would be weird-wave pioneer Dylan Graves, whose latest video documents his pursuit of a break birthed by a dredging project on Australia’s Gold Coast.
Earlier this year, Cyclone Alfred walloped the Gold Coast. After initially kicking up a run of incredible surf, the storm then made landfall and caused severe damage and coastal erosion. The region was faced with the loss of approximately four-million cubic meters of sand, in a place famous for its beaches. So the government launched an extensive (and expensive) beach restoration plan, which involved, among other interventions, sand dredging.
“[The dredging program] was all over the news and piqued my interest of course, from a surf perspective,” explains Graves. “So I drove up and had a look. And wouldn’t you know it, the banks looked good, immediately.”
In order to get an actual explanation of what was happening, Graves reached out to city council to interview the mayor. Though the politician didn’t reply, he did come across someone in the lineup who was able to break the process down.
“Over the natural course of time, that sand slowly makes its way back to shore, but because the Gold Coast is so reliant on its beach, we needed to sort of speed up this process,” explains coastal engineer Sam Dalton. “We don’t have that time to let it naturally recover. So that’s why we got the dredge in. What the dredge does is brings that sand in from the outer bank and basically pushes it closer to shore. So we can get bigger beach widths for everyday beach users and it just happens to have a co-effect of giving us waves as well.”
In fact, the replenished sand created an entire new island. Unimaginably dubbed “Sand Island” or “Gold Coast Island,” the brand new landform not only captured the attention of local news and social media, but also created rights and lefts breaking off its shore.
However, the magic may be short-lived. The dredging project has finished, and Sand Island will inevitably return to the depths from which it emerged.
“I’ve had an absolute blast chasing these sand bars,” summed up Graves. “Can’t say I’ve ever watched a sand bar form in real time before, so I’d personally like to thank the Gold Coast city council for this unique experience.”
