Bathtub Beach has been 'relocated' by Hurricane Sandy

Drove down to Bathtub Beach on the barrier Hutchinson Island in Stuart with brother Gerard this morning.  I was there in September, too, and tho it wasn't a wide stretch of sand then, it at least existed.  The 'dunes' behind the beach in the photos that follow are actually man-made (by the payloaders you might be able to see towards the left sides of some of the photos) and are in what used to be the parking lot there.  To access what little is left of the beachfront there, you have to park at a much smaller beach-access parking lot and trudge along the water's edge, around the bend.


The section we are standing on is a sand-bar that was formed by the storm, too. . . . the water 'tub' behind us wasn't there at all in September; it was all sand back then. . .

I'm sure my Beth, Michael and Jamie remember this house alongside Bathtub Beach.  Note the "For Sale" sign now.  Must've taken a bit of a hit in the storm.

Gerard.  Note the man-made dunes and the payloaders at work piling more sand onto them.  There's no parking lot any more because those dunes are in what used to be the parking lot for that beach.

The "new" bathtub at Bathtub Beach.  The water's warm, but I'm not going in today.  

One last thing.  The island is a 30-or-so-mile long "shoestring" with one of its narrowest parts just behind those man-made dunes in these photos.  The road there was completely washed out, the ocean water coming into and forming a new small 'channel' to the Indian River there.  The very exclusive community of Sailfish Point, made up of some 60 or so estates, obviously had become "Sailfish Island" for awhile there as a result of the wash-over.  Thus, the building of the man-made dunes at Bathtub Beach was not done to rebuild the beach, but to strengthen the narrow roadway re-connection of the community to the outside world.