Surfing
Vetch’s beach hosts an incredible diversity of user groups within a small area and is a recreational gem to the people of Durban. With its sheltered location and generally small swell, Vetch’s beach offers a safe bathing area as well as a “nursery” area for learner surfers and other beach-loving enthusiasts. Many of Durban’s top surfers started out on the small, gentle swells of Vetch’s and Addington, before progressing onto the other beaches with bigger swell and surf.
Vetch’s value to surfing is based on the following:
(1) The 800 metres of beach inside the reef provides the perfect ocean conditions for pre teens to develop their ocean confidence, whether it is swimming, body boarding or surfing. The diminished ocean power is ideal for these beginner water sport sessions.
(2) The area from the base of Vetch’s to the uShaka pier, with its gentle ocean floor gradient and diminished wave power creating gentle breaking waves, has been the ideal area to learn to surf over the past 50 years. A surf school and board-hire facility operates from uShaka to accommodate this ever-popular pastime.
(3) Although Vetch’s reef does not often have a breaking wave, when the right combination of swell and winds come into play, it is a world class right-hand reef break, while the rest of Durban’s beaches are usually “maxed out” (swell being too big or square-on to the beaches resulting in close-outs, i.e. not a decent rideable wave). Vetch’s reef produces some of the most unique waves on the east coast ofSouth Africa. A great wave that is most suitable for intermediate to professional surfers alike. This wave could be lost forever if the development went ahead.
The eThekwini Municipality, which is a 50/50 partnership with the Durban Point Development Company, have shown no concern for the damage that will be caused to the cradle of South African surfing in their quest to build the proposed small craft harbour and thereby make a few more rands for their shareholders. When it suits them, the eThekwini Municipality use surfing extensively to market the city to tourists, but at the same time they now want to destroy part of this asset.
Vetch’s beach and waves cannot be replicated anywhere in the Durban area or the entire South African coastline. If the proposed small craft harbour is not stopped, surfers and beach users shall lose the following features forever:
1) 800 linear metres of beach and shore break, which shall be replaced by concrete quays.
2) Our research indicates that the uShaka, cradle of surfing area, shall be subjected to concentrated beach erosion thereby negatively changing the nature of wave conditions for ever. For obvious reasons no study of this erosion was ever conducted during the EIA process.
3) The proposed 5 metre high solid breakwater inside of Vetch’s shall exacerbate the rebounding backwash which shall make the existing world class wave unrideable and could even cause Vetch’s Reef to break up.
As mentioned in the Social Impact Study, conducted by the developers as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment, Vetch’s is a favoured family beach for all races, offering the safest sea bathing in Durban. If the small craft harbour is not stopped, all future generations of potential surfers, will be denied the opportunity of a safe and secure learning ocean nursery. Is this the legacy we would like to leave for our children?
Protect our surfing heritage and support the Save Vetch’s Association. It is the last legal avenue we have to save Vetch’s Beach for future generations.
MIKE LARMONT & LISA GUASTELLA