A mesh of vegetation has been credited with fending off an ocean eager to cut its way further through Bribie Island.
Pumicestone Passage Catchment Management Board spokesperson Jen Kettleton-Butler, visiting northern Bribie with her uncle Les Clarke, said the 1.5-2m frontal dune that had been on the east side of the island near the Lions Park was now gone.
Both Ms Kettleton-Butler and Mr Clarke, a professional fisherman who has spent his entire 78 years in Caloundra, described what they saw as “total devastation”.
On February 27, Ms Kettleton-Butler highlighted what she described as a second breakthrough on the island.
She said the 15-20m wide strip of the island she had walked across two weeks ago was now “absolutely unrecognisable”.
Video taken two hours off the high tide on the ocean side shows water and waves across what had been mostly dead vegetation and sand early last week.
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Looking towards the ocean side of the island, Ms Kettleton-Butler said “the only thing that’s holding this together is that weed mat and vegetation”.
Doug Bazley, owner-operator of Bluey’s Photography, has been regularly filming the northern tip of Bribie with a drone.
He said a mesh of vegetation remained in place where the ocean, stirred by Tropical Cyclone Alfred, had been trying to cut a second breakthrough.
He marvelled at the way the thick mesh of vegetation was holding together as the waves broke on top of it, describing it as “remarkable”.
“When the ocean broke through in 2022, there was no vegetation barrier. Where it broke through was probably a new area,” he said.
He said the vegetation matter resisting the ocean at the second breakthrough point was so dense that it had likely been growing for years.
“It’s taken a long time for all that stuff to build and that’s probably why this new one (breakthrough) has been slower,” he said.
Ms Kettleton-Butler and Mr Clarke were disappointed about the lack of a coordinated government effort to reinforce Bribie Island and protect Golden Beach and Caloundra.
Mr Clarke said there had been enough monitoring and the problem of erosion at Bribie could have been solved if authorities listened to what locals were telling them.
“All it needed was for people to listen, listen to people who have lived here all their lives, and I’m not talking about myself – I’m talking about my father and his brothers that worked and lived on this passage,” he said.
“I’m talking about my grandfather that started fishing in the passage in 1915. We loved this passage and we looked after it.
“It’s just a bloody shame that people have let this happen.”
Mr Clarke said the island was being starved because sand dredged from the Spitfire Channel was being sold off rather than deposited where it could be returned to island.
Mr Bazley said he could not see what more could be done to hold the island together, saying it seemed too late to be able to permanently reinforce it.
“You’ve only got to look at it. How do you reinforce that? The whole area is washing away,” he said.
