DEWEY BEACH — Area water sport fanatics say ongoing beach renourishment projects are negatively affecting the shore breaks.

“Last time (a renourishment took place) it really messed up the beach. You couldn’t really even boogie board in town. There was such a deep drop-off … the waves would break right on the beach,” said Matt Ramsey, one of the managers at East of Maui in Dewey Beach. “I haven’t noticed a problem this time yet, but they’re not finished. Who knows? It could be better, worse or the same.”

Tim Cotter, who works part-time at Alley Oop Skim in Dewey Beach, said he has noticed a change for the worse.

“There’s always a difference,” he said. “I think this is the second time they’ve done it, and just recently I think the surf was getting back to normal, gradual, slow drop-off … now it’s deteriorating again.”

Cotter said the conditions can make for “uncomfortable” skim boarding and send people south in search of better waves, like those in Ocean City.

“I’d rather go surf on the beaches they haven’t tampered with,” he said.

But Tony Pratt, shoreline administrator for the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, claims the renourishment efforts are not to blame.

“To say there’s not good surfing right now because of the beach renourishment would be misleading,” he said. “Because Delaware has never been a great spot for surfing… Fenwick Island is really the exception.”

Pratt said as a child in the 1960s and ’70s, he often went to Ocean City seeking out good surf waves.

“People complain about this now, as a result of the projects, but I don’t know how valid their complaints are,” he said. “People surf on many beaches that have been renourished across the nation.”

Dewey’s beach replenishment recently kicked off and is expected to last another four to five weeks. The estimated $6 million project was postponed earlier this year due to inclement weather.

Crews will next move south to Bethany Beach to begin pumping sand and patching up the storm-damaged beach there, officials said.

Sections of beach in each community will be closed to public access while crews are working, Pratt said.

According to Pratt, a floating hopper dredge is collecting sand in 10,000 cubic yard increments from more than two miles off the coast of Fenwick Island. That sand is then pumped onto Dewey’s shoreline.

“It’s designed so that the material will be pumped through a buoy to add height and width to the beachfront,” he said. “This will be replacing the sand lost to erosion over time.”

After Dewey, workers will pump 200,000 cubic yards of sand onto the shore in Bethany Beach. That $2.25 million project is slated to finish toward the end of the month.

story via

And now the world has discoved Alana Blanchard. Things will not be the same after this Rolling Stone Article.

FORT WORTH – Golfing and surfing don’t have too much in common.

Golf, as they say, is a gentlemen’s game dominated by clean-cut players. Surfing is a sport for free-spirits often with shaggy hair and laidback attitudes.

But that doesn’t mean golfers can’t take up surfing. Just ask the Australians on the PGA Tour, who say it’s as common there as it is riding a horse in Texas.

“Whether you do it or you don’t, it’s just kind of what you do,” said Geoff Ogilvy, who’s No. 6 in the World Golf Ranking.

Ogilvy, 31, started surfing about a year ago, when he spent the summer in San Diego. This year, Ogilvy has even caught some waves with fellow Aussie Adam Scott, when the tour stops in beach towns.

Ogilvy said his surfing handicap, if there were such a thing, would be an 18; Scott is a 12.

“[Ogilvy] is getting heaps better,” Scott said. “I think he’s improving quick.”

Not quick enough, though, to quit his day job.

Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, has won two tournaments this season, is second on the money list with more than $3.15 million and has made the cut in all 10 tournaments he’s played.

“The art of golf is knowing yourself and how to get you to play the best,” Ogilvy said. “There are thousands of cases of guys that tried to get better and got worse. I see golf, though, as the sport doesn’t change. You are not trying to work golf out; you are trying to work yourself out.”

story via