Cindy and I were drinking our coffee on the white sand beach this morning as the sun came up. We sat listening to the gentle slap of the waves along the shoreline as we sipped on Columbia’s finest with each sip waking us up just a little bit more.

This should be the way each morning is greeted. Sitting on a sandy beach, warm winds hitting your face while you sip on a hot coffee and watch a beautiful woman walk out of the water after her morning swim. Life is Good!

The waves weren’t big waves, just small 1-2′ footers that would roll in, in sets of twos and threes. The water was crystal clear and beautiful to gaze at.

Walking along the shoreline, we kept seeing big schools of Manta Rays swimming very close to the shoreline. They’d follow the waves and ride them in, almost getting thrown up onto the sandy beach. Sometimes one would hang too long in the wave and get tumbled over as the wave would break and flip the ocean glider onto its back. With a couple of flips and splashes, it would recover and hurry back in with the rest of the pack.

We joked around wondering if this was a game? Were the other Rays teasing this clumsy one that had wiped out, or was it the daredevil in the group and the others were all hooting and hollering as he rejoined them? Dont you ever wonder about things like this? We do.

A ways down from the Postcard Inn were giant socks that were filled with dredged sand to help stop the beach erosion. Cindy and I both commented on how such a simple solution could be used in Cedar Key where the city commissioners have put off dredging our city’s marina because they claim the cost of hauling away the dredged material would be too costly. The longer they put it off, the more the city marina gets filled with silt and becomes utterly useless. The city itself has held numerous Marina Workshops asking for advice and suggestions on how to solve this problem and how to help with our constant beach erosion.

They’ve called in experts, had Marine Biologists come out from various colleges and had numerous agencies give their input on this natural problem for coastal villages.

These giant socks could solve two purposes by keeping the hauling costs at a bare minimum, and providing a giant break wall to help stop the beach erosion. Two separate problems solved with one solution!

With each storm that hits our city’s docks, we usually lose a wooden dock or two, or the seawall takes a beating as the storm waves crash upon it. Most coastal cities have built breakwalls to help protect themselves from such storms. This is nothing new, and has been done since the dawn of time as large cities were built along the oceans edge. I cant even begin to understand the argument the city and FEMA makes that this is a Wildlife Refuge, so we cant do basic preventative maintenance to protect the coastline that we’ve already built upon? I would understand if we were talking about building big seawalls or breakwalls to protect empty coastline where nothing is built. But once you’ve built upon the coastline, then protecting what you’ve already built, especially when there is a thriving community to protect shouldn’t be an issue!

All you have to do is think about the Government Dollars that will be spent in clean-up and rebuilding compared to the minimal expense of preventative maintenance.

If these giant socks were to be filled with the dredged material out of the city’s marina, they could become the outer break-wall we are in desperate need of, and the material would be 100% natural in case the said break-wall was to ever be destroyed by a major storm. (If that was to happen, the seawall and docks would be the least of our worries)

I always scratch my head when I see such simple solutions to major problems, but you relay these tips and hints to the people that could make the change, and it falls on deaf ears? Government, Politics and the people in charge are USELESS these days when it comes to solving simple problems.