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Boscombe:

Hopefully, you will all be aware that the reef is planned for construction this summer. It may even start as early as May, but it takes a while to design, sort out tenders and make all the geo-textile material. Placing and anchoring the geo-textile compartments to the seabed and filling them up with sand are the very last stages. Never-the less, I’m hopeful that it will be ready for the autumn. Before that, they will be taking the end off the pier, and forming a T section at the end. God knows how this will effect the surf. A shortened pier can’t be helpful though. Kerry’s latest design brought the reef inshore a bit, and we are hopful that this will create some “harmonic” effects. This means that one or two banks to the side and inshore at high tide, should have good waves at times.

Trip to Ekas Bay, Lombok:

Last August, Dave Wright and I spent two weeks at Kerry’s surf resort of Heaven on the Planet, at Ekas bay in SE Lombok taking in the 4th International Conference on Surfing Reefs. This was probably the best two weeks surf of my life. It’s a beautiful resort as well, with a choice of three distinct areas to surf according to how large the swell is and how big you are happy to surf. Suffice to say that we had head high or over every day with offshore winds, for two weeks. If you are thinking about it, don’t be put off by the unlikely situation on the map. Submerged headlands refract the long period swell to steer it on to the breaks more than one would expect. We also made a quick visit to Bali as the swell dropped, and despite the crowds (to which we were unaccustomed at Ekas), managed to get a few good waves each at Uluwatu.

Southbourne:

It seems that the beach is still pretty much unrideable after the sand nourishemnt last winter. We think that this is partly because of the relatively course material used and in particular, the amount of large flint stones on the beach. A few of us have written to councillors about the matter, and the matter has been reported in some of the national papers and local tv. You may have seen the recent publicity in the Times, Mail, Express, Echo etc. See http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/latestnews/display.var.1122728.0.shore_thing.phpI This has all raised hopes that action will be taken to restore the sand and thereby improve the surfing. Liberal Cllr Roger West is leading the fight on this. The council is reported in writing a couple of years back as saying that they intended that the beach these would be sandy rather than shingle. Clearly, the current situation is bad for leisure use generally, and beach safety, so do write to your local councillor and keep up the pressure.

David Weight.

January 07.

Surfers Against Sewage

Green Motor Fuels

Green Surf Mag

and Green Surfboards