Parts of the wreck are, in recent years, more visible more often. But according to Snijders that only gets worse. “You can barely drive it anymore. Marechaussee regularly drives over it. If you drive here at night, you will not see those pieces of the ship.”
Beach owner Arthur Dontje also raised the alarm in May. Last winter his restaurant Prince George almost washed away during a fierce autumn storm. “We are absolutely not ready for the fall. That will be a big disaster,” says Dontje. Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier (HHNK) then responded that the beach was sprayed with extra sand in April. And that there are conversations with the ministry about future maintenance.
‘Taming up always faltering sea’
“The weather is very different from twenty years ago, so we must also increase and strengthen the coast and the dikes,” says Snijders. To save the beach, according to Strandvonder, for example, a reef of concrete blocks, about a hundred meters in the sea, is considered. “We have to try to tame the ever -rising sea somehow, but nobody really has a good answer to that. In the end nature is in charge.”
Is a beach tent still kept in this place? View the report and interview of last May with pavilion owner Arthur Dontje here: