OCMD Beach Replenishment

I do get around a lot. In part because Cape Henlopen and Assateague is a 30 mile stretch of coast that, at any given time, has plenty of potentially good surfing spots impacted up by a whole slew of projects. We won't even get into Delaware how jacked up Delaware is....The past 5 years have been a bad spell for OCMD. Uptown OC gets good rarely and some years practically not at all - its hard to believe it was once a year around surfing area. Mid-town used to be consistent, has been funky for months and month on end the past few years. OC Inlet - yeah...all of the pumped sand ends up there and has clogged the arteries of a once great wave - a go-to spot not that long ago that is now a novelty wave when its even breaking, which is rarely.

But yeah...i try to get out somewhere that is breaking with a board and a camera. I'm just hoping that OC is getting pumped early enough in the winter that some storms pull the sand back out into sandbars for a few swells. I expect next summer will be DISMAL there.

 

70th and the lower streets used to work. that was weird.... now as soon as I get to 50th I run down south again

 

Beach replenishment is good. To much water was drawing off of the bar causing closeouts. With beach replenishment we will get a wave that is forced to break, instead of pulling that standing wave crap then loading up all at once over the bar.

It will also give us more barrels. If you want no beach replenishment go to assateague.

Our sand bars have become complete garbage the last year. Trust me by spring things will be great.

Last replenishment got ruined by Hurricane sandy, after that things have been to spread out.

Beach replenishment will give us square barrels again with out all the draw off of the sandbar making the wave vertical and Undropinable.

Catch 22, the small perfect days and summer swells will not work.
However, on medium to large choppy days we will get great waves.

Days with heavy offshore winds will be better because the wind won't blow all the water off of the bar with the draw back making 6 inch deep flats, under sea level pockets and impossible drops.

There are good things about beach replenishment

 

It will also give us more barrels. If you want no beach replenishment

There are good things about beach replenishment[/QUOTE]

Before this BS started (talking 25yrs ago) OCMD was 100x better and barelled all the time. Could also handle east swells up to couple feet overhead. Inlet broke almost everyday. The best wave around (Mitchell correctly calls a novelty) used to magnify swells all summer long. Knee high swell = chest high. You also had breaks that blocked wind (jetties were actually big enough). You could surf TPTSNBN completely alone. I will admit that the kids seem to handle OC better than i do. They turn short steep waves into ramps. I dont have that club in my bag!

 

Smitty, yeah the Sholes are over full with sand, so much so it's messing up the local fishing community. The inlet channel is so shallow it is destroying fishermens fleets running aground.

We are so jammed with sand on the sholes intown is getting shadowed on SE, and SSE swells, majorly.

In the long long ago inlet was great.

We need jetties but the hotels that they were built in front of would complain. Just like they complained about surf beach being in front of their area in the summer

 

"The best wave around (Mitchell correctly calls a novelty) used to magnify swells all summer long. Knee high swell = chest high."

It was a wave pool. The entire east coast would be flat and OCMD Inlet would be firing. We were so spoiled.

 

I would argue that the Cove isn't what it used to be because it's a victim of the original problem (erosion and "hard structure" control measures) rather than the secondary problem (beach replenishment... which is a futile attempt to address the original problem).

By developing the shoreline, we've cut off the sources of sediment that fed the beaches naturally. As a result, we've had to put "hard structures" in place - something New Jersey is infamous for... the phenomenon is known as "Jersification" of the shoreline. These structures, as you know, are not effective in controlling erosion, and in fact in some places only exacerbate the process. So... the Cove has filled in over time, even though it's never been pumped. All of the sand from replenishment to the south has drifted northward, and settled into the Cove because of the seawall through Monmouth Beach and Sea Bright. That seawall has kept the shoreline from migrating and oscillating like it would naturally, so the Cove has been the sight of sediment depostion for more that two decades.