Does the perfect surfing wave exist? Some say yes – but that construction on Barbuda could ruin it forever.
“I ran through the bush and out onto the open beach. I looked around and there it was: a vision that was truly hard to process – an empty, never-ending, double-overhead righthander grinding down a sandy point.
If I were asked to describe the perfect wave, I don't think it would be as good as this. I literally hadn’t conceived of a wave so flawless.”
— Surfer Alex Botelho, on seeing the Palmetto Point wave for the first time
An Unparalleled Break
The wave at Palmetto Point became the way it is because of a miraculous combination of a large number of factors.
For example, the speed, direction and position of the ocean currents, the type, size and shape of the sediment, the influence of the tides, the prevailing wind, and even the flora and fauna which is, in turn, affected by the temperature and salinity of the water. If you change any one of these factors, the wave could be affected. And because the wave is already very close to being unimprovable, any change will most likely make it worse.
PLH’s Reconstruction of Palmetto Point
Palmetto Point is a fragile system of sand dunes and mangrove ecosystem located on the southwest tip of Barbuda, protected by international law due to its fragility and significance.
The construction of the Barbuda Ocean Club on top of Palmetto Point will have dire consequences. It will destroy the ecosystem, with its unique flora and fauna. It will alter the coastal morphology, which could destabilise the rest of the island and jeopardise other human settlements. Morphodynamics are hard to predict, especially with episodic storm events like hurricanes, and with future changes due to the climate crisis.
This means the wave will also be affected. The morphodynamics are highly delicate; interfering with the natural beach and dune system will put things out of balance and lead to problems.
Wave Access and Pollution
Even if the morphology of Palmetto Point’s coast were somehow miraculously preserved amidst this construction, the Barbuda Ocean Club already presents big challenges for anybody who wants to surf at Palmetto Point.
One of the biggest new issues is access. There are now fenced-off and guarded areas that are declared ‘private property’, even though the whole of Barbuda is supposed to be communal land. Visitors to the island, who were welcome able to drive to the point and camp on the shore, now must trek from miles away. And the shoreline of Palmetto Point has already been so significantly reduced that when walking the (public) beach by foot, it’s nearly impossible to avoid crossing onto the new golf course.
The other problem, of course, might be from the massive amount of waste generated by building a city on a sand dune. There is really only one place where all that waste would end up: on the beach and in the line-up.
“Just like Humpty-Dumpty or the second law of thermodynamics, destroying a wave as perfect as this is easy, but putting it back together again would be almost impossible.”
- Dr Tony Butt, coastal oceanographer and surfer