Did you know a common handsaw can cut through limestone very effectively

BTW, a few of the reefs you may currently be frequenting may have had a bit of boom work in the 70/80s.

Why??? Because your arse will get seriously busted for doing it.

trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/59479039

Razzonater said..
Any historians amongst us or perhaps those of a rupee vintage than me may have a first hand account but.......

A few nuns went for a swim at trigg, they got dragged out towards the point to where the "blue hole " is or was,, several of them drowned..

I think prior to this there may have been a few other singular drownings of younger people and swimmers...

This was however the last straw, they blew the "blue hole" area of the reef to smithereeens and from what I have heard took a huge chunk out of the reef and displaced the current quite significantly.

I would be interested if anyone has a link or proper recount of this story especially any photos prior and after..

I am quite certain this is a true story and not folklore

I started fishing Trigg in the early 90's when i was 11 or 12 and up untill maybe 2003 i fished that area most days before school, after school, on weekends, around study, work etc and annoyed the **** outta poor old Cleggie . When you talk about Trigg in the 80's and 90's he was certainly part of it all and he passed about 10 years ago now and even with his issues he was always good to me and i never once heard him swear! I still dont understand how people can have a nice boat and bother with bloody whiting though!!

I used to keep my tripod under the bushes at Ron's(?) house in the carpark (i wonder if its still there but what a $$$ location) and while that kept me dry i much preferred being mobile while fishing on the reef. Getting bashed around a little or stepping in a hole at 4.30am is better than getting knocked off your tripod. I caught and released a lot of fish from that area and even got a 5.5kg tailor one day. Back then it was good fishing for Perth metro which was already flogged to death.

The old blokes on tripods had plenty of stories of the 70's and 80's and a few people did drown so it was blown up but i was always told the reef was made out to be more dangerous than it was and bad swimmers just got into trouble. I was also told that the nun died at what was known as nun's pool to the north and not the blue hole itself.

There was/is kind of 2 "blue holes" still, depending on the season or the beach in winter and while the current and water movement back out can be really strong it's not so bad in summer. That being said, one of the guys i fished with found a body on/under the reef one morning in the late 90's but he had gone missing from further south.

On calm evenings i used to snorkel there to collect all the lost lures and in all the years i fished that area i only saw the island as an actual island twice. Maybe times have changed, fishing Trigg was such a huge part of my life growing up but i dont think i've been back in 10+ years.

Edit: You can see how the reef has changed from this googled pic from 1970. The blue hole itself is on the left but you can still see a bit of it today and thats where we fished in summer but closer to the beach is another shallower hole that the water channels out. There is/was a platform of rock that used to get exposed some winters and you fished into the that "hole". I think that was part of the rock in the foreground of the island? The tailor were always bigger in winter, 2-4kg fish weren't uncommon but cable station used to see the odd 6kg+ fish but it was too far for me to ride!

Why cant we blow up sections of reef with TNT to make better structured waves?
Answer. Because the fuse would get wet?

cisco said..
Why??? Because your arse will get seriously busted for doing it.

Yeah dude, that's just a truism... the question is why... There are plenty of laws and common views in society that aren't grounded in reason or evidenced by good science and it is here where we should lay scrutiny on such views/policies in the context of BLOWING THE FRICK OUT OF USELESS REEF :D If there were enough surfers banded together, combined with enviro scientists we could make a VERY good case.

busterwa said..
www.bunnings.com.au/craftright-3-6kg-sledge-hammer_p5560202
some customisation tools

That would take foreveeeer! The job is to dismantle a large ledge so that it has a nice gradual incline

There is an expanding product that does exactly that without explosives.
Seems to not be that common, maybe its kept on the down low or restricted as if people started pouring it into cracks for fun it might get a little dangerous....

Anyway Drew I think you're coming at it the wrong way. You asked "why can't we....?"
I say one man can. One man with a can-do attitude can change the world.
You don't know how much trouble you'd be in, and just like marriage its easier to ask for forgiveness later than permission now. Go for it.
Report back after please.

CJ2478 said..

drewpweiner said..

mazdon said..
you wouldn't use explosives per se, but more like a slowly expanding product.

Drill holes to the depth you want, fill with product, let it expand and crack the reef, then either rip it out using a back hoe on barge or if small enough just manual handle into holes or to deeper sea bed...

have thought about this alot also!!

Drill with what exactly? Is there anyway you could do this while being completely inconspicuous?

The method he described is similar to line drilling used in earthworks cuttings in rock. I am not familiar with a method that doesnt use an explosive component to fracture the rock along one line due to conservation and ecological preservation. The method is dependent on the type of rock though and the plane of laminations and other geological factors. Not sure how effective it would be in your limestone.

@ drew in this day and age I couldn't ever see something like this getting across the line. The issue of conservation and ecological preservation is a big one and something that neither you or I (and most other people on SB) would understand. There is probably some endangered species of mollusc that would be affected.

I think what has greater potential are the man made banks and reefs that dont destroy existing habitat. Check out the new one they are building on the gold coast at palm beach. Instead of the geotextile bags filled with sand they are using large dimension quarried rock. This setup allows sand accretion, surfing amenity and presumably opportunities for habitat.

Lol, When did molluscs become more important than the health and well being of human surfers? Environmental Protectionism definitely has some very strange arguments these days, with what I see to be quite a large number of overly sensitive people with firm idealistic beliefs about "the way nature should be" who blow things way out of proportion, mainly out of fear and trauma from the negative impacts on the environment that we have already caused THAT REALLY SHOULD BE CRITICIZED (like drilling for oil).

The fact that I would be locked up for blowing a small section of reef out of the water yet oil companies are allowed to persist increasing greenhouse gasses just shows the absurdity of human beings minds. Yet, we all, for the most part, agree with them and set laws in place to not destroy reefs yet all allow mining to still go on. Ridiculous. Faith in humanities reason lost.

MDSXR6T said..

The good old days when there was waves. Sand out past the "island" now.

There was a reef blown up at Scarborough as well, which contributes to the straight banks now. Nothing to stop the current from the seabreeze all summer and stabilised sand dunes holding all the sand.

drewpweiner said..wouldnt have that much impact environmentally...

drewpweiner said..

CJ2478 said..Not sure how effective it would be in your limestone.

blasting limestone [on land] is a nuisance - the limestone soaks up the energy of the blast - I often needed to set a small charge first, to create a cavity that I could then pack a decent amount of gear into, to get the desired result.
Underwater blasting however, is another thing altogether - you will not only wreck the bit of reef that is offending you - but kill everything in the immediate vicinity - [do a google for reef damage due to fishing with explosives]

@ drew in this day and age I couldn't ever see something like this getting across the line. The issue of conservation and ecological preservation is a big one

As it should be - again - check out the damage done from fishing with explosives throughout Indonesia and other areas


I think what has greater potential are the man made banks and reefs that dont destroy existing habitat. Check out the new one they are building on the gold coast at palm beach. Instead of the geotextile bags filled with sand they are using large dimension quarried rock. This setup allows sand accretion, surfing amenity and presumably opportunities for habitat.

The fact that I would be locked up for blowing a small section of reef out of the water

pretty good chance you will be caught - the navy has seismic detector thingos all around our metro coast - to do with submarine warfare training, and they are sensitive and accurate enough to pick up and locate the noise of underwater drilling.

Mark _australia said..
I know where there is an unexploded WW2 bomb stuck in a reef.

If you want to go drag it out and stick it in your local, go for it.

I think I know where you mean I found one there probably somewhere around the 80's that I reported and the Navy ended up flying a bomb disposal crew up in a chopper, I took them across to the Island in a dinghy and they actually took it back to Perth for inspection and research.

Another one my cousin found was blown up where it was.

Also there is a few bays on Rottnest Island (I know Catherine Bay is one) that reef at the entrances was blown up, under the cover of the night, to allow access for bigger boats back in the 80's as well.
I believe the likes of Laurie Connell and Alan Bond may have been behind it.

the red tape involved in purchasing kaboomy stuff was just a wee bit less complicated back then!