What's happened to the beach?

December 6th 2009

The change in Phuket's seasons brings some dramatic changes to the beach at Bon Island. The strong winds of the 'kite flying season' blow the sand up onto the island, and the waves that the wind creates push the sand from the eastern side of the beach to the western side. This year it has taken only nine days to make a 50cm cut into the sand (see photograph above) and this process will continue for the next couple of months. By early next year we can expect to see a difference of over 150cm. This change has resulted in one of my regular customers from Phuket Coconut Paradise Villas accusing me of cutting down the tree that he had previously been sitting under. I had to explain that it was in fact the beach that had disappeared not the tree!

And so now I return with another photograph of the same stretch of beach, this time taken on 3rd December 2009 one month on from the photo at the top of this blog which was taken on November 4th 2009. The beach has receded a lot, exposing more rocks and it has still to go further back. I will return again soon with the next update!

After the strong wind yesterday, strong waves cut away at the sand even more, leaving many more rocks exposed and carving a shelf along the beach.

Luckily the sand stopped moving just before it got to our beach chairs, leaving a couple of them on the brink of disaster!

Now it's already half way through January 2010 and the beach has changed a lot, there will be no tourists lying on this corner of the beach until the sand starts to move back again in about three months time.

And so as it nears the end of Phuket's 'High Season' and the beginning of the monsoon season, the beach has been through the first half of the annual cycle. The sand has moved from east to west and, as the photo taken on April 2nd 2010 shows, all that remains are rocks.

May brings a late start to the monsoon season this year, but within just a few days it seems are beach is moving back to the east again as you can see from these photos taken on the 29th May 2010!