Unintended Consequences
A lot of hollow waves on Earth get the “Pipeline” tag added to their name — but don’t always match up to the Banzai. Oaxaca’s Puerto Escondido, known as the “Mexican Pipeline,” however, has always lived up to the hype. One of the most recognizable waves in the world, Puerto has thrilled, terrified, and attracted both surfers and spectators alike for decades.
But right now, Puerto’s legacy is in trouble. In 1998, a jetty was constructed at the north end of Playa Zicatela beach. While the intent was to create a safer anchorage for local fishing boats — which it did — the structure also came with an unintended consequence.
Now, the jetty catches sand that would otherwise exit the natural sand system, causing the beach to fill in behind the jetty and expand the main beaches to the south. You can really see the difference in beach size when looking at the red indicator lines in slides 3 & 4. Sand’s gotta go somewhere, right?
The clear effects of all this extra sand has been two-fold. If you just want to hang out on the beach, then sure, you’ll enjoy the extra real estate. But the effect on the world-famous surf break has been negative.
Over time, since the jetty’s construction, the waves break much closer to the shoreline. Many locals claim that this results in more closeouts. Some even suggest it makes the wave more dangerous. In either case, everyone agrees there is less wiggle room given the proximity to the beach.
Once upon a time did Long Beach have its very own Superbank?
OK, maybe that’s a bit of hyperbole, but most people have probably never heard of the wave called “Flood Control.” Perhaps that’s because it only existed from the early 1920s to the mid 1940s, really during surfing’s modern-day infancy. Despite its undercover persona, however, the wave has been touted as one of the best in California at the time.
The wave called Flood Control was initially created when a jetty was built to 1) Direct the LA River directly into the ocean and 2) Form a protected harbor for Navy ships on the other side. With the longshore current halted by the new jetty, hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sediment transported by the river formed a massive sandbar. Offshore canyons focused swell on the sandbar and favorable wind patterns persisted, creating a fabled right hander with size, long rides, and clean conditions. Everything a surfer could want.
But then came World War II, and everything changed. As the US surged into the war, it expanded all military assets – including Long Beach Harbor. The additional jetties that were added effectively killed the wave by the mid-1940s. To give a little perspective as to where Flood Control used to be, it’s been said its takeoff point now rests just aft of the Queen Mary’s stern.
Ironically, unintended consequences can actually begin with man making good waves sometimes, not just screwing them up. But unfortunately for surfers, the good times didn’t last too long with this one…
For years, Sebastian Inlet’s “First Peak” was one of the East Coast’s premier waves. Incoming swells reflected off the north jetty forming a wedging, hollow right-hander where many of Florida’s very best cut their teeth and honed the skills that took them around the world. From Crawford and Tabeling, to Slater, the Hobgoods and so many more, First Peak served as an incubator and launching pad to bigger and better things.
But just as easy as man giveth, man taketh away. In the early 2000s, modifications were made to the jetty/pier, extending its length and adding a second set of pilings. While preservation of First Peak was supposedly top of mind during the renovations, the modifications nonetheless had a markedly negative effect on the jetty’s ability to reflect waves. First Peak is now rarely seen in true form. Another example of unintended consequences as a result of human development.
Jetties, groins, and breakwaters are manmade structures, typically made from large rocks and/or concrete, utilized for varying reasons.
A jetty extends into the water perpendicular to shore, usually at inlets and harbors. Its primary purpose is protecting the navigability of channels.
A groin is like a jetty, but usually shorter and built on stretches of beach, not at inlets or harbors. They are often built in a series of parallel structures with the goal of trapping sand. But while groins may trap sand on their updrift side, increased erosion on their downdrift side is well documented.
Breakwaters can be built parallel or perpendicular to shore, with their primary purpose to protect coastlines from powerful waves. While sand may settle and accumulate behind the breakwater, increased erosion is likely to occur downstream.
San Clemente, in our opinion, is not a good fit for any of these structures as sand mostly stays within San Clemente’s “embayment” and moves both north and south within it. Structures like groins are typically utilized to keep sand from leaving a system up/down coast, not where sand movement is bi-directional like in San Clemente.
Finally, hard structures such as these create both intended - and unintended - consequences due to the complexity of the nearshore zone. One example is the potential negative effect any structures would have on San Clemente’s world-famous surf breaks. Jetties, groins, and breakwaters have a place, just likely not in San Clemente any time soon.
So, in our last post we explained how Snapper Rocks — and largely the entire Superbank — got its groove, thanks to some ingenious sand placement. Of course, we forgot to mention a little ‘ole sand-bottomed dream wave named Kirra…
Thing is, Kirra’s kind of a different story. Once upon a time, Kirra was a natural pointbreak that broke really well sometimes — and not so well at others, like a lot of those southern Queensland points.
Then in 1972, to help fill sand into Kirra, two groynes were built: one up above the natural point, and one below. This was not done to improve the surf, but in fact was done to preserve real estate values further down the beach. Obviously, everyone thought it was going to ruin the Kirra line (the wave you see in “Morning Of The Earth” etc.). But instead…the wave improved. The sand was contained within the groynes and Kirra lined up like never before. By the mid-1980s it was CRAZY. Like, the best ever.
BUT, when the sand flow was restored by the Snapper sand pumping of 2000, the sand carried down into Kirra and filled it to choking. Kirra turned into a closeout for several years.
Over time, though, the sand flow evened out, and today Kirra is almost back to its glory day self. Pretty wild, no?
Some waves look like virtual fairy tales. Take Mundaka, for example. The crown jewel of the Basque Country and beloved CT stop on the Dream Tour for 10 years, picture a firing, wind-groomed left-hander rifling in a bay with a medieval village on the point in the background. The key to its continual success? A perfect sandbar formed by the nearby Oca river.
Sadly, though, the river mouth was dredged in 2003, redirecting the mouth, altering the sandbar, and killing the wave to an extent in the process. Basically, the heaving left-hander pretty much disappeared for several years, and the townspeople — and surfers far and wide — grieved. But…after years of solid rainfall, the river rerouted to its original course, once again forming that perfect Mundaka sandbar.
Nature is metal, huh? Or at the very least, has a way of correcting unintended consequence humans make along the way.