To the right of Captiva's jetty
We love to see good west winds bring our seashell treasures to us but we do have some problems that come along with it. With wind, the sand and shells are brought in and start to form sand bars in some of the waterways. When the waterways close, the lack of water flow depletes the bays of the nourishment they need to keep healthy. That’s what happened to our waterway many years ago… it closed so we opened it back up by dredging.
The dredging of the channel that splits Sanibel Island and Captiva Island called Blind Pass, was completed July 31, 2009. I attended a meeting last night to find out what should happen to keep the pass open for the future. The number one goal to open the pass was keep the flow and quality of the water stabilized for 5 years. Navigation was never in the plan. For those of you who have been following this blog, I’ve shown pictures of the dramatic changes of the pass since the beginning of December.
I’ve had many of you ask me what “they” are going to do about it. This is my take on what happened in the meeting. It looks like we have a permit that is expected to be approved in June 2011 and there should be a dredge available in September 2011. I’m not saying that I was told there WILL be dredging then but it could be AVAILABLE if the City of Sanibel, CEPD, and Lee County decide to go ahead with it. Mother Nature will be the one that decides if she wants to close it completely or not. Right now the water is still flowing and the county feel that the pass is still stable.
I have a video of yesterday at high tide. Guess what…. you can only see a little tip of one of the bars. The water was flowing over top of most of the sand bars.
So nice to see people in shorts and T’s — it is -13 with -30 windchill here this morning!! Expecting a warm up into the 30’s this weekend.
I can almost feel the sharp shells under my toes. It’s minus 18 C here this morning and for a few minuets I felt transported to one of my favourite places on earth. I’ve walked the beach there and picked up many shells. Thank you for sharing this video.
Thanks for sharing. Look at all those shells.
The tide might have covered the sandbars up but I don’t think I’d go barreling through there in a big boat. Hopefully whatever action is taken will be well thought out for it’s long term effect on the area. Up the coast on Honeymoon Island in Pinellas County the solution in the 70’s was to make a rock/boulder barrier around the entire beach. Today it’s still a great beach once you get past all the rocks. What was once beautiful white sandy beach turned into a moonscape. But the sand was erroding anyway so the something had to be done. Believe it or not you find geodes on the beach now from where the rocks split from the constant surf pounding.
WOW! What amazes me is that we were sitting at that very spot one month ago and there were no shells at all! (besides the little white ones that spotted the beach just a little ofcourse) In fact, my children sat on that little “hill” and played in the sand! I can’t believe all the shells that are there! Fun, beautiful, awesome.
It’ll be interesting to follow what happens at Blind Pass. Thanks for the update and the video! ~ Maria
Great video. I’m very excited to be there in April. Thank you so much for that video! Where is that located?
THE PASS WILL CLOSE AND WILL CONTINUE TO CLOSE FOREVER AND EVER. IT STARTED WHEN THEY PUT ONE WALL ON ONE SIDE OF THE PASS. THERE HAS TO BE A WALL PUT ON BOTH SIDES OF A PASS, THE SAME WAY IT IS DONE ALL OVER FLORIDA. I’VE SAID IT A HUNDRED TIMES, BUT THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS AND THE REST OF THESE MORONS WON’T LISTEN. THIS WOULD CAUSE THE CURRENT TO MOVE THE SAND PAST THE ENTRANCE OF THE PASS AND PILE UP PAST THE SECOND WALL. THE TIDE CHANGES WOULD ACCELERATE THE FLOW BETWEEN THE WALLS AND BLOW THE SAND IN FRONT OF THE PASS OUT. BUT, YOU CAN’T TELL THESE PEOPLE ANYTHING. THEY JUST WANT TO DO THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN, AND EXPECTING THE RESULTS TO BE DIFFERENT. HOW DUMB IS THAT.
RICK SILHAVY
SANIBEL RESIDENT
That’s how it is up here in Venice at our jetty. It’s on both sides and it stays open just fine.