Where has Bastion Beach gone?

 On 8 April I went for a walk on Bastion Beach to see what the big swells of recent days have done.  On the way I called in at the wharf to check the water level in the Inlet. It was relatively low (0.16m) compared to recent levels (up to at least 1.1m) probably reflecting tide height.  A couple of locals decided to hitch a ride (or check me out for chips).

Here is my eBird track with an addition.

The blue line is my route while the green line is the approximate edge of the water.  It is hard to assess exactly where the mouth is on the image but looking at Google Earth I estimate that it is at least 300m wide at present.

Going down the steps the loss of sand is quite evident as most of the rock visible in this image is usually covered by the sand.

In the next image the red line indicates where the sand level has been in recent months.  My guess is that at least 1.5m of sand has been washed away.

This image shows the area where the walking track from the campground comes out onto the beach.  This has usually been about 50m wide between two large clumps of Acacia longifiolia.  Clearly the waves have been coming right over and washed out a lot of the vegetation.

This is the ocean edge .  It also suggests the weather on the day: overcast with a few showers.

This illustrates the width of the Mouth.  There is a heck of a flow going out but despite this, at this low stage of the tide there is an offshore sandbar building up as shown by a Pelican walking around about 50 m from the shore. 

Going West of the steps the bare rock continues almost to where the road comes down.  Brown foam was evident here, but not much elsewhere.

A  passing Egret.