Mt. Rainier and Lenticular Clouds - Dec. 2008 copyright: JMM

November 15, 2015

A Warm Day at the Beach

After our freezing weather, it got super warm so I stopped by Town Neck on my way home from Sandwich.  I was comfy in a tshirt and shorts.  It's still in bad shape from the storms but the town is spending in excess of $2 million to obtain sand that the Army Corp of Engineers (ACOE) will dredge from the Canal.  Not sure when that work is going to start. 



Not much glass at all, but I did find this rather large operculum, which is pretty.


I think I found Scusset Beach's missing rocks.

Whoo hoo!  Got one!  Note the teensy mussel shell right below the glass.



We really do have the coolest rocks.

Oh boy a second piece!  That was it for today, just 2.

 Some cormorants on the rocks just off shore.

This is a small residential area on the beach and the homeowners are currently embroiled in a huge fight with the town over the sand issue.  In a nutshell, the ACOE was willing to put the dredged sand in front of the houses in exchange for permanent easement over the property to the beach.  The majority of the homeowners balked, so the town decided to pay to have the sand put on the public portion of the beach.  Now the homeowners are accusing Sandwich of doing that for spite, and filed a lawsuit against the town.  So come the next big storm, esp. if we have a high tide at the time of the storm, these houses are going to probably flood.  That berm will wash away, along with the rolls of erosion control stuff.





 This will more than likely be the first casualty this winter.  



After I left the beach I went to the marsh side of the parking lot.  That's boardwalk.






18 comments:

  1. I enjoy your searches for your beach finds. Nature does wreck its havoc doesn't it? And while it does, people will still go on building too close to the beach and raise their havoc when nature comes too close...

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    1. I haven't gotten to the beach near as much as I'd hoped this fall. The thing with this erosion is that it's been going on for almost 100 years. Before the Canal was built, the Bay was fairly quiet. But once it opened in 1914, currents started running swiftly with the tidal changes, washing sand in and out of the bay.

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  2. Love that birdhouse. I have little sympathy for the houseowners, it was/is the same in North Carolina, they despoil the seashore by erecting houses right on the dunes. There were a couple they built whilst we were there, right on top of the dunes, and I was waiting every hurricane to see if they lasted. Sadly, so far, they have. That's one heck of a lot of money to pay for sand, but then I suppose beaches are a source of profit as they bring the tourists, etc. etc. Love your pix as usual JoJo

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    1. Thank you Jo! Some of the houses have been there for awhile, but that big one is obviously pretty new. And the town would have gotten the sand for free if the homeowners had agreed to the easements. The state gave the town a grant in excess of a million...I think it was $1.4, but then there was an inevitable cost overrun and the town had to cough up $600,000.

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  3. wonderful finds on the beach .... interesting about the sand and the town. We have had lots of flooding where I am with the hurricanes over the last few years. the price you pay for living in paradise

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    1. Thank you! Yes, you do pay a high price to live in a place with a killer view. What used to crack me up out west was the people who bought homes in a place called Washaway Beach complained when their houses flooded and washed out to sea. I would've thought the name of the area would have been their first clue.

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  4. Aren't cormorants just the most amazing-looking birds, especially when they hang their wings out to dry?

    No idea what an operculum is...

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    1. An operculum is the 'door' to a shell, like a conch or snail shell. It's usually attached to the animal that lives inside. But sometimes you find them on the beach if the shells were broken and the animal eaten by seagulls. The cormorants hang out on the light poles at the canal with their wings spread out all the time. It's pretty cool.

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  5. Great photos as usual JoJo! Too bad when homeowners want to hoard property frontage on the water, but then don't want to pay the extra costs to protect their home. Perhaps they should be in a higher property tax bracket to cover the costs of the city keeping it safe. . .?

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    1. Thank you so much! Oh I'm sure their property taxes are very high. Sandwich is a notoriously expensive town in which to live, esp. if you own a large house on the beach. And like I said, they would've gotten the sand for free but they were unwilling to trade permanent easement.

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  6. Anonymous8:12 AM

    It's the same fight here where I am. Any time a nor'easter rolls through and takes away the dunes, the state has to rebuild them and it costs a fortune. It's no wonder those houses along the shores are so expensive...and so pretty!

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    1. Well what I don't get is that they are gonna spend all this money to replace sand that's going to be washed back into the Canal, if not this winter, then over the next year or so. It's not going to stop. They've replaced the sand every year since I've been back and every huge storm, another hole is punched through the dunes.

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  7. Sooo pretty. Your photos and the view. I wish I lived where I could see water all the time.

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    1. Thanks Teresa! We are very lucky to have salt water all around us. It's very soothing and good for you.

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  8. Anonymous8:19 PM

    Every time you post about a beach or ships it makes me miss Lake Michigan so much.. I hope you'll go back here when the snow flies. I'd like to see that house in all it's icy, snowy glory.

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    1. We'll see if I can get out in the snow and cold. I generally don't leave the house b/c I absolutely hate winter here. You get that icy wind off the water too.

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  9. I have a feeling you'd find the coolest rocks where-ever you looked, anywhere in the world. It's a gift of yours. One of many.

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    1. Aw thanks Robyn! I've been beach combing on both coasts and the rocks in Washington weren't that varied like they are here. I wish I could find someone to identify what each one is. We get these gorgeous red and yellow quartz-like stones but I don't know if they are quartz.

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