Shore thing

Encounter Bay will never recover its lyrical picture postcard beauty now that the classic little wooden jetty is gone.
Modern boaters demand modern facilities - so, with loud justifications about sea rescue, we now have the pontoon style metal boat ramp with its priapic stability poles and room for boats to come and go four at a time. Heaven forfend a boatie should queue.
I remain disappointed that the Council chose to bulldoze earth onto the beach to create more parking and to change the shoreline. I continue to think that the pontoons are downright dangerous as well as ugly. And I can't say how sad I was when I wandered down there to find a boatie throwing stones at the pelicans who roost on the huge and ancient Erratic rocks (dropped by the Permian glaciers 240 million years ago).

I actually stopped and said; "I don't believe what I am seeing. Why would you want to throw stones at those beautiful birds?" The lad, aged late teens, looked at me with dumb insolence. Then his father popped his head up from whatever he was doing with the boat and laughed: "He couldn't hit them if he tried! He's just seeing how close he can get a stone without hitting them."
The logic of this dumbfounded me. The psychology of it sickened me.
I have always liked boaties, albeit that I have not liked the fact that they have been allowed to vandalise the coast with the ugliness of these now ubiquitous pontoon ramps. Some marketing person has done a major coup flogging those to councils right across the land. They must be very rich indeed by now.
But, while I like boats and fishing and fishing people, I definitely did not like these particular boaties - who may symbolise the tip of the iceberg of ugly new people attracted to launch boats and jet skis from our new multilane ramp.


Despite the fact that Encounter Bay is as sheltered and quiet a water as there is in the world, they have built a massive breakwater beside the new boat ramp. This, apparently, is because the pontoons are dangerous if there is water movement. They are unstable. you see. They roll up and down and undulate with waves, making them hard to balance upon if there is a hint of weather. Well, there is rarely a hint of weather in this gentle and shallow bay - but millions of massive rocks have been carted in and a giant breakwater now reaches out into the bay.
Fortunately, the Council has done something I have not seen on other boat ramp breakwaters. It has ordained a path to be made on top of it so the real people, the locals who walk dogs and stroll the shore, can actually walk out as they did on the old jetty. It is not yet finished, but it is a positive - and I am looking forward to spending many hours out there as the years roll on. I do hope they put a bench there.

Still not finished

The boat ramp is still not finished. The pontoons are in. But the pontoons seem to have problems. They move around on the water. They do not stay still like a jetty. Nor do they have any rails to hang on to.
Little Rosetta Bay, the corner of Encounter Bay, is arguably the quietest piece of water on the south coast of South Australia, but it is not quiet enough for the floating pontoon.
So a huge breakwater of dirt sits across the peaceful edge of the bay. This, they say, will be replaced by a huge breakwater of rocks - because a huge breakwater is needed to ensure that no movement of water rocks the metal pontoons.


Meanwhile, no one can walk down the pontoons and enjoy a view. They are a bit scary. They are not stable.
The metal tie-up lugs are a real tripping threat if one raises one's eyes from the metal floor.
But, of course, the pontoons are not meant for the non-boating people, for the walkers who used to like to stand on the wooden jetty and watch the sea grasses, the fish, sometimes a squid and ever the optimistic pelicans, not to mention the mirrored stars at night.


Who the hell came up with the idea that unstable floating pontoons were better than the jetties enjoyed and safely used by generation upon generation?

The sad story of Encounter Bay

Once upon a time, there was a scenic little jetty beside a boat ramp on a picturesque and peaceful South Australian bay.
Children played on the little sandy beach beside the little wooden jetty. Pelicans sat on their favourite rocks, seven to thirteen of them, preening and snoozing and waiting for fishermen to cast away bait fish or fishtails. Elderly couples sat on the shore watching the birds and the sea, the islands, the sky, the timeless and serene view.
Even by night, the little jetty was a joy-bringing beauty - particularly in summer when the sea lay dead calm and the stars twinkled not only from above but from the water's inky mirror around the little jetty.

When a Council has something this exquisite within its bailiwick, there is really onlyone thing it can do.
Destroy it.
Who wants picture postcards in a resort town on the sea?

What we want is industrial views.


Little hobby fishing boats are not revenue for a Council. They may be pretty and pleasurable, but they don't compete with big boats.
So what we really need is a really big boat ramp for really big boats.
And we need facilities for those big boats. Carparks and parking meters and lighting.

And so it has come to pass that the City of Victor Harbor in South Australia has descided to destroy the prettiest picture in its album.

At the same time that it has erected signs warning people of the delicate ecology of the ancient reef in Encounter Bay, it has vandalised the bay in the name of - well, I am not sure what.

As the moves develop to respect the fragile nature of the intertidal marine ecology, and the fears about over-fishing lead to increased moves for marine parks, this Council has invested many hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe a million, into providing access to huge, polluting motor boats.

Here in the bay where the mother whales bring their young in the winter.
Where, most mornings, I can see a seal rolling and playing and fishing along the reef line...this reef, described as a "nursery" for fish.


What the bay needs is diesel slick and bigger boats.

Well, it is what it will get.
And what it needs is less beach and more cars.

To that end, they have just bulldozed earth onto the beach - pushing the carpark out to sea.
Who owns the beach? I thought beach was common land and no one in this country had a right to destroy it, let alone impede people's access along it. The law has changed? I was wrong? It is Council land which may be infilled and used for other purposes at whim?

The pelicans which have been such a joy to all (and the subject of my photo website) and who have long lived on the round rocks of the shallows, have gone. Of course.

So have quite a few of the rocks themselves.

The excavations just get deeper and deeper and the boat ramp is looking as if it has been designed to accommodate oil tankers. Huge groins encircle a vast cavity whence towering black metal piers reach for the sky. These may be anchors for the industrial metal pontoons which the Council, with its high sense of aesthetic, has chosen to replace the wooden jetty.


We shall wait and see how it all looks when finished.
Perhaps we shall have to look to the art of Jeff Smart to see beauty in the industrial impact on this once-pretty bay.

Perhaps, however, we shall just have to avert our gaze and ponder sadly why any Council should wish to be remembered for such travesty.
Then again, people have short memories.
Perhaps, in a few years, only the pelicans will miss the old jetty.