Once dredged, the seaway will become a
swell-sucking magnet, and the deep channel
will pull swells with any easterly direction into
the channel and towards the aptly named
Wavebreak Island. We just have to look at
the first few years of the seaway’s operation
to see the clear evidence, with countless
days (some surfable, but most not) of large
oceanic swells running all the way to inside
the broadwater before dissipating in front of
Wavebreak Island. It is in this simple historical
and scientific fact that the great irony of
the proposal lays - if you deep dredge the
seaway to accommodate massive ships, you
Wayne up at Fishos in
the 90s (left) and in the
shaping bay nowadays
// Photos Wilba and
Supplied
LiQUiFY | 66
in turn amplify the swells and currents that
will ultimately prevent any large cruise ship
company from operating any kind of safe
and reliable schedule to the location, if ever
coming at all.
Hence there’s a reason Carnival Cruise Lines
came out publicly throwing support behind
the proposed new Brisbane super home port
terminal, and specifically not the broadwater
proposal. An official Carnival statement
pinned Brisbane as their ‘preferred’ location
for expansion in Queensland, and said they
would be putting both their money, and