Between 1991 and 1996, a sand hook formed on the north side of Ameland, near Ballum. Large sandbanks landed on the North Sea coast and Ameland was richer in morphological features, but also had a poorer bathing beach. That hurt Ballum and the Ballumers then took matters into their own hands and created their own experience beach. Every year they get on their tractors and shovels and collect clean sand from the sandbank and slide it onto a beach where children can play.
Natural phenomenon on Wadden Island
- Sand hook for the bathing beach of Ballum
- Green beach of Ameland
- Quicksand
- Ballum Beach
- Experience beach
- Beach pavilion Strand Ballum
- Friends at work
Sand hook for the bathing beach of Ballum
The area above Ballum is still moving, as all islands are moving. The islands walk and the sand arm makes a large arc northwards and then lands eastwards on the island, between Ballum and Nes. Every year the situation is different, every year the current and the sand areas have shifted. Then again there is a lagoon and then an inlet or a channel.
Morphological cycle
A sandbar has already landed on the island at that location three times. The morphological cycle repeats every 60 years. The beach got a beach hook that moves to the east. The shelter of the sand hook gave the beach area the opportunity to develop into a green beach.
Green beach of Ameland
The green beach rose and silted up so high at the beginning of the 21st century that it remains dry even at high tide. Wind forms dunes and plants have a chance to take root. An area is created with pioneer vegetation and more plant growth every year. Bird species discover the place to nest. The green beach has limited access. During the breeding season, dogs must be kept on a leash and the birds are allowed to rest. This area can be regarded as the most dynamic part of the natural Netherlands.
Cliff’s ear
In 12 years, 120 plant species have been identified, including samphire and sea lavender. In August 2014, a plant that had not previously been spotted in the Netherlands was discovered: the cliff sea lavender. This plant, which resembles common sea lavender but has a slightly different color and a smaller leaf rosette, occurs on the cliffs of the British coast and along the coast of Brittany. The seed apparently was carried away by the current and found a good soil to germinate on the green beach at Ballum. In 2014, about 200 plants were flowering, which is why biologists suspect that cliff lavender had established itself there several years earlier.
Photo RWS / Source: RWS
Photo Ameland Press Agency / Source: Ameland Press Agency
Photo Ameland Press Agency / Source: Ameland Press Agency
Quicksand
The natural development of the sand and water features create blubber and quicksand. The blubber stinks and the quicksand is dangerous. Rijkswaterstaat sees the development as a natural process and does not want to invest money in sand movement and beach formation with machines. In 2011, Ballum is fed up. The village does have a beach pavilion but no bathing beach. Until the 1990s, the most beautiful beach on Ameland was located near Ballum. Some enterprising Ballumers put their heads together, consult with the municipality, Rijkswaterstaat and Bird Watch and come up with a plan. They form the Friends of the Ballumer Badstrand club and put words into words.
Photo Ameland Press Agency / Source: Ameland Press Agency
Ballum Beach
In May 2011 they went to the beach with a large group of volunteers and eleven tractors, three shovels, three cranes and a bulldozer to create a clean beach at Ballum. For three days they collect sand from the sandbank in front of post 8,400, to cover the silt layer between post 7 and post 8 with a layer of clean sand and to build a dam from bank to beach. Thousands of cubic meters of sand are laid in front of the dunes over a length of one kilometer, 75 meters wide and forty centimeters high, like the new Ballumer beach. All work is done by volunteers and the equipment is provided free of charge.
Sponsors
The costs of the diesel are paid by a sponsor. 12,000 cubic meters of sand are moved. Such a solution had already been suggested in the late 1990s and it was finally implemented in 2011. All these years, nature was allowed to take its course and Ballum had an extremely interesting and phenomenal natural phenomenon along the North Sea. Beautiful, but the village lacked its bathing beach.
Experience beach
Since then, Ballum has a play beach at the beach pavilion with the most beautiful white sand on the island and slightly to the east, at post 7,600, a place where you can swim in the surf. The name Experience Beach Ballum is circulating: a beach where you can browse for shrimps, find cockles, build sand castles, swim in the surf, lie on your towel, walk and, if desired, take a mud bath. With all these facets on a few kilometers of beach, Beleefstrand Ballum distinguishes itself from the other, also beautiful, bathing beaches of Ameland.
Flow
What was expected happened: some of the sand disappeared into the water with the current and blew elsewhere with the wind. In 2012, the people of Friends of the Ballumer Badstrand worked again on a machine-made beach and have repeated this every year since.
Photo Ameland Press Agency / Source: Ameland Press Agency
Beach pavilion Strand Ballum
Like ants to and from the ant’s nest, the tractors with buckets rush across the beach of Ballum on June 9 and 10, 2012. The industrious islanders, led by Klaas Nagtegaal from Ballum, gather that Saturday and Sunday on the only beach of Ameland that does not have the designation Badstrand. That hurts, but the Ballumers are less concerned with the stamp than with the experience. They want a beach where you can enjoy good time and recreation. Where children can play and where bathers can lie down, sunbathe and walk. Over a length of approximately 800 meters and a width of 40 meters, the dump trucks dump hundreds of cubic meters of sand, which are pushed by shovels into a smooth, clean beach. The new Ballum beach pavilion will open its doors on June 16, 2012 with a self-made beach at the beach entrance.
Friends at work
In the spring of 2014, on May 23, 24 and 25, tractors of all shapes and sizes will once again drive across the beach and grabs, shovels and sliding barges, controlled by Friends of Strand Ballum, will be present to create a new play beach. They will be there again in the spring of 2015 and work will be done on the beach again on May 28 and 29, 2016, and the job will be repeated again the following year. Afterwards it is quiet on Ballum beach: no digging, no moving sand. In 2019, Ballum has a beautiful beach and an excellent bathing beach all by itself. Nature has done its work with a little help from the Friends of the Ballumer bathing beach.
read more
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- Tour of Ameland – a walk around the island
- Ballum – Village on Wadden Island Ameland
- Vermaning in Ballum on Ameland – Mennonite church
- Massive stranding of jellyfish on the North Sea coast