MOTHER AND HER WAYWARD NATURE

MOTHER AND HER WAYWARD NATURE

MOTHER AND HER WAYWARD NATURE. Having had the privilege of living at or on the beach for over 50 years of my very fortunate 65 years on this awe inspiring planet I can’t help but wonder about the overwhelming forces of our mighty Mother and Mankind’s ability to cope with and survive her eternal challenges. No doubt about it the human mind is the most extraordinary machine ever devised by God, the universe, evolution, progress, innovation or however you wish to describe it.

Man has created the most phenomenal breakthroughs and overcome some of the most unbelievable crisis ever bestowed upon any species in world history to the best of our knowledge.

Yet every time my lovely wife and I stroll the beautiful beaches of our very intimate and quaint little community I marvel at the determined force and power of Mother and her often very violent and hostile nature. There’s no getting around it Mother will persevere and win in the end so it will always be an un-ending quest for the survival of Mankind should we be fortunate enough to continue to survive as the most dominant species on Earth.

What you see in the photo above is a determined Mother bent on having her way. Note the protrusion of Earth projecting outward several feet. Below this projection is where the prevailing storm surges relentlessly batter the sandstone slowly and persistently year after year carving away one nano-measure at a time until she begins to undermine the structural integrity of the land mass above eventually resulting in……….

In the above left photo you can see where the tidal surges and storm surf have undermined the volatile sandstone cliff as much as 6 to 8 feet under the cliff’s edge leaving it dangerously vulnerable to intermittent partial collapse all along the shoreline as is evidenced by the large clusters of sandstone that have fallen to the ground in the photo to the right.  These chunks of sandstone can weigh several tons so I wouldn’t suggest seeking them out as a way to escape the sun. Not too many years ago a woman was buried alive in a similar collapse while watching her husband surf.

Will Mankind, as other species and historical epochs that have come and gone during the past 5 1/2 billion years, finally acquiesce to the dynamic universal forces that have dominated the Earth since the beginning of time?  Or……will Mankind once again with his/her inherent “Ant Colony  like survival instinct” be able to buck heads with the dynamic forces that Mother Earth continues to cast upon us?

In the photo above the owners of these cliff-hanging mansions have gone to staggering lengths to protect their investments from the inevitable persistence of Mother’s pervasive and relentless will. Along this particular beach you will see many varying attempts and efforts being made every year which in many cases can cost as much as the homes their trying to protect.

NOTE: Some of these cliff-hangers are upwards of 7 million dollars which makes it the most expensive property  per square foot in this particular zip code, perhaps the entire state, and it's slowly being eaten away. But folks keep buying it, building gigantic seawalls and literally hanging in there year after year. It's our nature and we will always do it.

These sea walls are comprised of hundreds if not thousands of tons of concrete, heavy timber and steel combined with thousands of hours of intense engineering, design and extremely labor intensive,  not to mention very dangerous construction techniques, reaching into the millions of dollars in many cases. The blue colored squares on the upper middle of the sea wall to the right are not cosmetic features. They are called “tie-backs” and are the “end-caps” of giant corkscrew like rods that project back to “hard pan” or solid rock in order to secure the wall and keep it from falling over. The dark spots you see strewn along the bottoms of both sea walls are weep holes that allow the passing of water to relieve hydrostatic pressure that perpetually continues to build as the cliffs weep year around from on-going drainage caused by rain and irrigation run off.

Does Mankind’s ability to deal with the dynamic natural challenges that confront us daily continue to guarantee us a place on this planet or are we just buying time? Well, if you consider the engineering and construction feats of the efforts being attempted in these photos you will realize that there has never, to the best of our knowledge, been such an innovative and persistent species in all of Earth’s history.

The dynamic sea walls you see in these photos are but modest examples of mankind’s determination and will to survive the ever pervasive and intrusive forces Mother Earth continues to challenge us with each and every day. These are but miniscule compared to some of the vast and majestic bridges, dams, tunnels, skyscrapers space exploration, medical and technological achievements and advances man has accomplished in his/her very brief history on this planet.

The above left photo illustrates several other versions of  seawalls intermittantly dotting the coastal landscape. As you can see some are older, make shift and desperately in need of repair while others are state-of-the-art These plants will eventually cover a good percentage of the surface thereby making it appear like a natural stone wall. The photo to the right shows past attempts to merely plaster over the sandstone cliff without any structural tiebacks or concrete footings, columns and big timber re-enforcement or super-structure. Slowly the plaster is breaking and wearing away once again leaving the mighty sandstone cliffs to Mother and her ferocious persistence.

These sea walls along with many others intermittently strewn along this shoreline are a temporary solution at best. Mother will slowly and patiently continue forging her mighty way forward as the Polar Ice Caps continue to melt away and the forces of erosion continue to carve their mighty paths from the mountains to the shoreline eventually undermining and eating away at everything in its path.

But Mankind must persist with his/her ingenuity and genius to forever forge forward in its quest for survival. For without our inginuity and intestinal fortitude to do so we too will eventually fall to the forces of our fierce and fearless Mother of all Mothers. No matter what our obstacles we are survivors; made to overcome the many challenges that come our way during our journey on this very mysterious, dangerous and volatile yet beautiful and alluring planet called Earth.

After all…. What are our options?

I'm goin Surfing!!!!! The best of Mother's many dynamic forces.