john m wrote:You know Iona is a sewage treatment plant,I worked building the pipe in the 80’s,stinky at low tide.
It's not really the sewage that is the issue at Iona, the four sewage tailing ponds probably don't leak much of anything in to the bay.
The real problem are the two duck ponds, they drain directly in to the bay and are pretty nasty (but not raw sewage nasty). This makes the back of the bay somewhere you should really avoid.
I used to kite at Iona and it can be really nice but I walk about 500m NW before launching to avoid the toxic sludge in the back of the bay. I've been yelled at by a park ranger a couple times though so I haven't been there in a while. They have one small paper no kiterboarding sign pinned up inside the message board, very hard to notice.
I only have one mediocre SE session on video of Iona.
A few times I've been out there on a 7m and the wind has really picked up to like 35g45. Due to it's exposure to the Straight once it starts howling there it gets pretty full on and it's a bit scary. Not an issue for pole boarders though.
There does tend to be some water logged logs resting on the bottom of the bay so watch out for your fins.