BUILDING A BEACH AT ORIENTAL BAY

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 129, 24 February 1939, Page 8

BUILDING A BEACH AT ORIENTAL BAY

Harbour Board Endeavour DREDGE DUMPS SAND NEAR FORESHORE The Wellington Harbour Board’s new dredge Kerimoana has been paying regular visits to Oriental Bay iu recent weeks. Almost every morning she has steamed into the bay, to the interest of local residents. Her calls have been brief and to the uninformed apparently aimless; she has nosed into the bay on the north-east side of the bathing shed till within about 150 yards of the shore, when she has backed off again and disappeared down the harbour. . The explanation of these visits is that she has been dumping sand, in the hope that it will gradually work inshore and build up a pleasant sandy beach. , , • The Kerimoana has been dredging off Rona Bay, where the Eastbourne ferry steamer Muritai has recently experienced difficulty in berthing, because ot silting up on that side of the harbour. As the sand lifted from the Rona Bay seabed was of a fine clean quality, eminently suitable for a bathing beach, the harbour board authorities decided to take advantage of the opportunity to attempt to build up the Oriental Bav beach. Tiie Kerimoana has therefore been bringing the sand across Port Nicholson and dumping it in about two fathoms of water off Oriental Bay. Harbour board officials are of tne opinion, based on past observations, that the prevailing northerly seas will work the sand inshore on to the. beach, particularly at the Point Jerninghain side of the bathing sheds where at present the beach is stony and unpleasant.