A HEAVY SEA.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume II, Issue 181, 16 July 1912, Page 6

A HEAVY SEA.

: FINE SIGHT AT NAPIER. I Yesterday afternoon, on a rising tide, the sea at Napier presented a magnificent spectacle. Huge breakers towered to a majestic height and appeared to threaten destruction to the retaining wall on the parade and the town behind it, but the monsters broke up into foam, roar and flying spume before reaching any point of danger. Between the breakwater and the baths, however, the water was frequently thrown right across the road and rivers of muddy water ran down the concrete channelling. Even behind the shelter of the bluff the swell prevailed, and in front of Captain Luke’s the waters had crossed the road. At the Municipal Baths the waves were particularly furious and several of great size threw water and fine gravel right over the high concrete wall and to the road side of the bathing pool. Water also got into the fuel room and made things unpleasant. There were plenty of narrow escapes irom duckings on the parade, and some instances where people tailed to escape. A lady walking with her baby in a go-cart tailed to get clear near the baths and a wave rushing up on to the footpath soaked the p -or infant. Later on in the evening some boys who tempted fortune also got a sound wetting. The parade is strewn with loose gravel. The covering of the Browning street stormwater channel has been torn off, and at high tide yesterday evening the sea water was running in a free flood along the water tables in Hastings street to Tennyson street. The sea is the heaviest experienced for fully two years and it must- be remembered that the weather is perfectly calm. A fierce storm has evidently been raging far out at sea causing a phenomenal swell It took three hours to tie the Monowai up yesterday’ and then she broke four hawsers at once. On the closing of business places at 6 o’clock there was quite a stampede for the parade. No serious damage is reported and the recently constructed groins at the Municipal Baths did good service in collecting shingle. This morning borough workmen were busy sweeping the parade clear of shingle and sand. At one time the water almost entered Hastings street through the Albion Hotel lane, a big wave entering a gateway in the retaining wall and crossing right over the parade.