Northwind / shoal

Field notes

Sandbar shifts, water clarity and a shallow stretch worth wading.

A record of a sandbar that moves more than it should. Kept since the channel markers stopped matching the chart.

Latest entry: bar sitting further east than last month, exposed at anything under half tide. Water clear to the bottom.

Recent soundings

DateDepthClarityNote
6 Aug0.4 mgoodbar moved east
30 Jul0.6 mfair
23 Jul0.3 mgoodlowest seen
16 Jul0.7 mpoorafter wind
9 Jul0.5 mgood

Log

The channel markers are wrong again

Third time this year the bar has moved enough that the old markers point at dry sand on a low tide. Chart updates lag the actual sand by a season, easily.

Wind, not current, moves this one

A week of onshore wind did more to reshape the bar than the tide managed in a month. Worth watching the forecast more than the tide tables here.

Why bother measuring sand

Because guessing wrong means a long walk back around at low tide instead of a short one across.

Notes

The bar tends to sit further out in late summer and creep back in through autumn storms. Clarity depends more on the last few days of wind than on the season. None of this is surveyed — just watched, on foot, over a few years.