Watson

Shoal Bay Beach Surveys (Port Stephens, Australia)

Phil J. Watson*

Department of Planning, Industry and Environment, NSW, Australia

To set the scene, the time period is the late 1990s, when the biggest concern in life was the millennium bug and a time prior to the advent of the common era in which every element of fieldwork requires an approved workplan for seemingly every related human action and foreseeable danger.

As a Grade 2/3 Engineer in the Coastal Branch of the New South Wales (NSW) Public Works (Australia) under the Supervising Engineer, Mark Moratti, a part of my role included several data collection exercises along the NSW coast. These projects were designed to better understand the nature of the governing physical coastal processes, but more specifically sand transport in key areas where ongoing erosion was affecting assets and development with a view to informing and improving ongoing management strategies.

One such location was Shoal Bay situated on the southern foreshore immediately inside the ocean entrance to Port Stephens, NSW one of the most beautiful estuarine settings in Australia (Figure 1). Sand moves around the beach embayment away from the ocean entrance, reducing beach widths and over time, threatening the road and tourist village of Shoal Bay running along the back of the beach.

Figure 1. Shoal Bay, Port Stephens, NSW viewed from Tomaree Lookout. (Photo: P.J. Watson.)

DOI: 10.2112/JCR-SI101-051.1 *Corresponding author: [email protected] ©Coastal Education and Research Foundation, Inc. 2020 284 Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 101, 2020

The monitoring program was relatively straightforward, involving the establishment of conventionally surveyed shore normal profiles at approximately 50 m spacings extending around the embayment (Lord et. al., 1995; Watson, 1997). Our field team usually consisted of four key personnel: Stephen Holtznagel (Hydrographic Surveyor), Mark Moratti (Supervising Engineer Grade 4), Neil Kelleher (Engineer Grade 2) and myself.

We would take turns oscillating between the dry and wet teams. The dry team would start at the landward survey peg behind the dune on each profile line with a prism mounted survey pole, stopping at changes in grade, which were captured by the surveyor. At the water’s edge we would swap over to the wet team, kitted up in wetsuits, gloves, booties and flippers to complete the profile line out to around 3-4 metres below mean sea level. It usually took around three full days to complete the survey work around the whole embayment.

On this particular occasion we had completed around half the embayment before the skies opened up and the weather closed in, bringing a rather impromptu end to the days surveying. Up until that point we had enjoyed a glorious couple of days in the pristine aqua waters of Port Stephens, frequented by the odd bottle-nosed dolphin. The water work however was a little more interesting this time around because on numerous occasions whilst lolling about offshore in 4 metres of water like over-sized seals waiting for the dry team to hand over, we would be caught up in the middle of intense swarming baitfish activity steaming past us heading to the shoreline in waves almost 50 metres in length, followed feverishly by a variety of surface fish – quite an extraordinary experience.

The next morning was bleak with drizzling rain and no prospect of resuming the survey work until the weather cleared – possibly after lunch? With that we all decided to take the scenic climb up the peak of the magnificent Tomaree Head National Park situated at the eastern end of the embayment. The peak rises to a height of some 160 m above mean sea level, providing spectacular coastal views. Upon reaching the summit our surveyor summoned us to the eastern viewing platform, pointing out a large school of hammerhead sharks migrating north toward the entrance to Port Stephens (and our work area). With that, a National Parks Ranger working on fencing at the lookout innocently quipped, ‘Yeah incredible isn’t it, they’ve been schooling in large numbers over the past couple of days heading into the Port to gorge themselves on all the surface fish around at the moment.’ The silence that ensued was deafening.

That was our last field survey swimming in wetsuits to capture data. Fortunately, people were replaced with technological advancements including quad bikes and jet skis.

LITERATURE CITED Lord, D.B.; Watson, P.J.; Kelleher, N., and Avis, P., 1995. Offshore Dredging for Beach Nourishment; Shoal Bay, NSW. Proceedings of the 12th Australasian Coastal & Ocean Engineering Conference and 5th Australasian Port & Harbour Conference (Melbourne, Australia), pp. 416.

Watson, P.J., 1997. Port Stephens Sand Nourishment Projects: Evaluation, Monitoring and Sustainability. Proceedings of Pacific Coasts and Ports' 97; the 13th Australasian Coastal and Ocean Engineering Conference and 6th Australasian Port and Harbour Conference (Christchurch, New Zealand).

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