Buttermilk Bay Beach Replenishment

Buttermilk Bay is a body of water in the village of Buzzards Bay, in the town of Bourne. There is also Little Buttermilk Bay connected to it. I know, it gets confusing, but bear with us here. I am presently unaware of any name existing for the beach in front of Hideaway Village... "Hideaway Beach" is already taken, by Marco Island, Florida. (Editor's Note: We found a reference to "Hideaway Village Cove" on this site)

People ask "Why don't they just call this part of town Buttermik Bay?" Sorry, but that's taken by Plymouth. "Buttermilk Bay" is the southernmost village in Plymouth. If the Plymouth version of Buttermilk Bay touches the body of water that is Buttermilk Bay, it doesn't touch much of it. (Editor's Note: The Plymouth village doesn't touch her namesake bay it stops at Head Of The Bay Road. Bourne is the only town which touches both Cape Cod Bay and Buzzards Bay)

I'd complain, but I live in the village of Buzzards Bay, which only touches the body of water that is Buzzards Bay in the slightest way. If you need to be more confused, you enter Buttermilk Bay by going through Cohasset Narrows. The actual Cohasset town is about 40 miles north, in Norfolk County. Welcome to Cape Cod.

All of this sand is going to help restore the beach in the Hideaway Village area of Buzzards Bay. HV fronts Buttermilk Bay, if I phrased that proper-like. They get low (3 foot, as opposed to 8-9 foot tides I used to see on Duxbury Beach) tides, and minimal wave action.

However, it doesn't take much tidal compulsion to move beach sand down the line into Wareham. This sand meets with soil run-off from the Red Brook in the Wareham/Plymouth/Bourne tri-corner, and helps form an ever-growing estuary. There is some danger of sanding over a rather nice clam-digging area, but you can always buy some hip-waders and march out into the shallows with a fat rake. There is also a history in this direct area of rapid/total eelgrass depletion following development.

Erosion wins by attrition, rather than in a singular, overwhelming charge. Even if you just lose a few grains of sand with each wave, it all adds up over time. It's perfectly natural, and all good... unless, of course, you want to sit by the shore instead of having the shore move inland past your house. In that case, you need to replenish the lost sand.

Have no fear, Hideaway Village is here! They're dumping all of this sand down, hopefully the X part of a "Beach Remaining After Erosion + X Amount Of Sand = Cozy Beach" equation. By my own conservative estimates, they have enough sand stacked on this beach to fill 873,290 kitty litter boxes.

One thing we always said on Duxbury Beach.... never do work on shoreline property until mid-to-late April. This is 25% because of "the chance of storms," 25% because of "high spring tides," and 50% of "both." The Hideaway people are nowhere near the high tide line, and should lose no new sand to a high tide.

We'll be back with more pics once they've spread it around a bit.