King tides bring benefits to beach

The planets aligned to create some unseasonal weather in Broome with rain, high tides and large swells combining to push stunned visitors into the sand dunes on Cable Beach.

It all started last Sunday when the biggest full moon of the year coincided with the closest approach the planet makes to the earth on its elliptical orbit.

The result was the largest apparent size of the moon’s disk as seen from earth.

People enjoying Cable Beach on Tuesday and Wednesday were shocked when large waves pushed high tides of 9.6 metres and 9.7 metres sending them scurrying to the dunes and leaving less than a thin strip of sand to bask on.

Daryl Roberson hires out equipment to beachgoers from his business the Beach Hut, which is situated on the famous strip of coastline.

“The weather was pretty unusual for this time of year,” he said. “You mainly see conditions like that in the cyclone season.

“The water pushed everyone up on the first lot of dunes.

“The kids and adults have been having a lot of fun on boogie boards, with that swell pounding in on the bank there.

“But it was a bit dangerous at high tide because some rips formed coming out through the sand bank and were catching people out a little bit.

“A big tide combined with that southerly swell just pushed everything towards the sand dunes.”

Shire of Broome beach inspector Tim Trew said the fairly big tides were exacerbated by the waves.

He said little erosion was caused to the beach and area around the surf lifesaving ramp to the beach.

“If anything it has levelled the beach out,” he said.

“The sand around the vehicle access ramp has been smoothed out and the sand has actually covered a lot of rocks that were exposed by erosion through heavy rains earlier this year. If anything, I would say it has had a positive impact rather than a negative impact.”