Slip and Slide on the Dune

On the big beach holiday weekends, John and I have noticed that someone sets up a huge slip and slide on the dune of one of the "dredge islands".   I have to admit that it looks like a lot of fun!  People get on floats of all sorts and slide down the huge piece of plastic sheeting right into the water!  This island is located between the ICW and Banks Channel (if I have my bodies of water correct).

As usual, someone has to work really hard so that others can enjoy themselves.  This project seems to consist of a huge pump that pumps the water from the waterway into some pipes up the dune hill and then down the plastic sheeting.  There is what appears to be a very thin piece of clear plastic sheeting topped by a heavier yellow piece of plastic sheeting.  The sheeting is very large and very long.  This is held down by burlap sand bags.

Again, all of this looks like a lot of fun (except for those who go down without a float as I think that looks rough on the butt cheeks!)

We saw this on July 4th.  The next weekend, we saw that the clear sheeting was still on the dune and was dangling in the water.  We were not able to stop and collect the plastic ourselves because we were towing some unfortunate boaters who had run out of gas.  I made some phone calls to try to have this removed as all I could think of was the plastic breaking off and becoming part of the ocean environment.

On July 21st, we boated by the "dredge island" and noticed that the burlap sand bags and parts of the heavier yellow plastic were still there.  This time, we stopped.  The plastic was buried deeply in the wet sand.  Not to worry, I have sand diggers that I have collected from my beach walks; and so John and I went to work.  After breaking one sand digger and bending the other, we were finally able to get the plastic.  It was huge.  I wish I had taken more pics, but we were more concerned with getting back on the boat safely.

We were not able to remove all of the sand bags...yet....

Please clean up after yourself so that you do not ruin the fun for everyone!  More importantly, clean up after yourself so that you don't endanger the marine environment and animals.

Have no idea what this piping could have been used for, but it is no longer on the island.