South Shore Saturday Storm Surf Shots

We had a steady East wind yesterday, so we took to the road to see how local beaches were looking. This decision was greatly influenced by me having nothing to do.

We started off in Scituate, because.. well, why not Scituate? I know people who say that you shouldn't start anywhere but Scituate. I wanted to be in Scituate before high tide, be in Marshfield for high tide, and then just move back towards Cape Cod until the wave pics started to get weak.

My girl has taken a few waves to the face, I'm sure. Having your house look like the front bow of a ship is pure New England Coastal, player. I lack the skills as a writer to tell you how cool this guy's house is.

The wind wasn't too bad, and the surf is nothing worthy of a George Clooney movie. Like I said, I had some free time.

Anyone who grew up on a beach knows that this is an incoming wave that got smacked up by a wave ahead of it that was rebounding off of the seawall. I was in Marshfield by this point, and it was high tide. I was very pleased to see that I still have the instinct where I know when a wave will throw water over the wall, and managed to get behind the car door before this wave soaked everyone who was watching it with me.

Marshfield was fun, as there was some splashover happening. It was a change, being soaked by the waves instead of the rain. I had to change clothes not once but twice getting the pics for this article, but that's how I roll, people. If you're the family who came around the corner of the Pavilion while I was changing at Duxbury Beach.... the giant nude guy says "Sorry." I also apologize to the commenter on a previous article who noted that I tend to tilt the horizon on my shots. I've been working on that, but sometimes the wind wins.

There were no lifeguards on duty at Duxbury Beach yesterday. I did hook the seagull up with some of my turkey sandwich, just in case you think that I don't compensate my models. I don't think that Green harbor was that foggy, I was having a lot of trouble getting even one shot off without the camera lens getting spotted up by the rain. I have a rotten camera, and the lifeguard chair shouldn't be looking that good when the housing behind it looks that bad.

Duxbury has to do this to the seawall boat-ramp opening because the ocean smashed through 6 inch thick hardwood planks when they used to use those. If they don't put that iron plate there, this opening births an ocean river flowing into a residential neighborhood.

I usually shoot the residential part of Duxbury Beach, but I really didn't feel like getting out of the car if I could avoid it. I was soaked. I went to the Bath House, but I ended up having to get out of the car anyhow. As you have probably guessed, I got soaked.

What happens if you assume a bad Cuban accent and yell "Hey, Pelican!!" at a heron over and over.... at least that's what happens on Duxbury 's marshes. 

Plymouth, Cedarville to be precise, was our next stop. I poached my way into the White Hills Country Club for some above-the-fray shooting. This is from around where their 18th hole is,  That rock structure is called a Groyne.

Even small waves erode the heck out of those sand cliffs. That's why they are willing to risk the goofing that comes with installing a Groyne. 

Cape Cod Canal... this is a jetty, not a groyne.

Sagamore gets maximum barrier beach protection from Cape Cod.

Sandwich looked pretty calm from where I was standing. Time to wrap it up.

Hermine Surf Check: Chatham, Yarmouth, Bourne, Plymouth

Chatham Light

Be sure to check our Nauset Light Beach storm pics, too....

I am inclined to agree. 

I've been in this business for many years, and it is almost never a good thing when the news is setting up in your yard.

One of the benefits of a barrier beach like Monomoy is that you get not-that-bad surf.

Hardest-working lighthouse on Cape Cod

You want to park OUT of the puddles when you go storm-chasing, folks...

Seagull Beach, Yarmouth

Seagull Beach is south-fcing, which means that they didn't get much surf yesterday.

Guy thinks he owns the place.... Seagull Beach, Yarmouth MA

Sagamore's bird population also represented hard for our cameras.

Sorry for the blurry... it's tough to yell "Endanger your life standing on that rock until I get a better picture" at somebody in that situation. I don't have any moral problem with it, it's just tough to be heard over the waves. 

The perspective of the man who I wanted to keep standing on the jetty saw.

18th Hole, White Cliffs Country Club. 

Cedarville, MA

All that sand for all of these beaches has to come from somewhere...

Naming Post-Secession Mainland Cape Cod

When the traffic gets bad enough and pols start talking about making residents pay tolls to cross a theoretical third bridge, people who live in the mainland areas of Bourne and Sandwich start getting angry. When that anger boils up enough, you even hear talk of secession.

"We lost any financial benefits from Cape traffic in 1985. Start our own town, demand financial concessions from Cape Cod for the traffic, and dump both bridges into the Canal if the Cape says no" is the general tone of secession talk.

I'm not going to support the "dump the bridges" talk, as it is terrorism and might kill someone. I'm also not here to push Secession. It's a fun conversation piece, and it might get me some site visits, but I'm simply not the man with the answers you'd need if you wanted to get the movement going. I'm not sure how it would be done, nor am I sure if it is even a good idea.

I'll leave those questions for a future article, most likely one written in August when I just took 90 minutes to get through the Belmont Circle rotary. Instead, I will take on something that I am completely capable of doing... naming the post-secession town.

We're going to work from a fictional scenario where Buzzards Bay, Bournedale, Sagamore Beach and Scusset Beach have all broken away from Bourne, Sandwich and perhaps even whatever parts of Wareham and Plymouth (why not go for everything east of Red Brook and all of the Great Herring Pond area?) we could get our hands on.

The resultant bow-tie shaped town would need many things, but the main thing it would need is a name. We've kicked around a few, and we'll share some of them with you now. There's no ranking, even if the staff have their own personal favorites.

- Gridlock

"Gridlock" would be a form of protest. It would speak of the new town's plight, while concurrently scaring away tourists who would otherwise clutter up our roads. It would be easy to remember, it would gain us amazing name-recognition value, and might invite investment.

"Gridock" was chosen from among several staff suggestions for traffic-related town names, edging out equally awesome but less serious contenders such as "Jam City, Massachusetts, " "Road Rage, Massachusetts," "Slow Lane, Massachusetts" and "Bumper-to-Bumper, Massachusetts."

"Bumper-to-Bumper" would have a sort of Stratford-upon-Avon sound to it, and would pair us with "Manchester-by-the-Sea" as the only town names in the state with hyphens in them. We'd also join them as the only town names with Prepositions in them.


- Ripton

"Ripton" was the name of a fictional Berkshires town that an awesome western Massachusetts pol (Editor's note: it was a UMass-Amherst professor) invented. He was able to apply for grants, and even got Ripton included in the state budget. He did Ripton's work so well, he was able to obtain state funds for the fictional community. He gave the money back, as he was less interested in Fraud and more interested in pointing out that the state government lacks Western Massachusetts awareness.

Anyhow, my financial adviser- who I will admit up front is in jail at the moment- tells me that he's "pretty sure" that state funds were collected and set aside for Ripton, and that if a Ripton should suddenly appear, they would be owed both the original sum of money and any interest accrued since Ripton's 1980s inclusion in the state budget.


- Capeside

Not a lot of TV shows were set on Cape Cod and the Islands (I can only think of one other one, Wings), but one of the best was Dawson's Creek. I don't think that I saw enough DC to tell you what it was actually about, but it launched the careers of Katie Holmes, James Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams and that other kid.

If you were a child of the 1990s and didn't arc a few to Katie Holmes... nice restraint, brother.

The "Capeside" town scenes in Dawson's Creek were actually filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, and any Massachusetts scenery used in the show was filmed in Oak Bluffs. However, why not steal the name? As you can see from the entries above and below this one in the article, it's not like we have any better ideas.

"Capeside" edges out several other fictional town names that we wished to steal from TV, movies or literature, including "Amity," "Crabapple Cove," "Dunwich, "Wallencamp," "Peyton Place," "Gotham City," "Atlantis," "Jerusalem's Lot," "Dudleyville" and "Quahog."

- Wutham

Pronounced what-ham, it would be a goof on neighboring Wareham. We'd spell it "Whatham," but we wish to avoid GPS errors with Waltham.

We'd need Marion to change their name to Whoham in order to complete the trinity.


- Sagamore

"Sagamore" is probably the logical choice, although it would be complicated in that the actual village of Sagamore is on the Cape side of the Canal.

We might have to name the town "Scusset Beach," which would force us to  negotiate something with what would most likely be a very hostile Sandwich town government.

The "Scusset Beach" thing would be unfair to the Buzzards Bay part of the new town, while a "Buzzards Bay" naming would be unfair to Sagamore Beach.


Shark City

Assuming that we are unable to cut a concession for traffic from Cape Cod, and assuming that we lack the testicular fortitude to destroy the Canal bridges.... well, not all fights are physical.

If we can't take the physical means of going to Cape Cod away, why not attack them through tourism?

There would be no way of driving a car to Cape Cod without going past the NOW ENTERING SHARK CITY signs which we would dot the highway with. I'd even post the population on town signs, and cross it out every time someone died... you know, like they do in bad towns from cowboy movies.

Sure, most of those deaths would be Old Age, Cancer and so forth....  but you won't be thinking that when you drive past the Shark City sign.

Double Bay

One thing that this fictional town would have on every other town in the state would be the fact that we would be the only town to touch two (Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay) bays.

If you count Buttermilk Bay, we could even be Triple Bay.

This one is here mostly because it would make a great Casino name. If we stole enough of Wareham's eastern and Plymouth's southern forests, we could build a mega-casino right off the highway.

Shoot, I'd leave the bridges up at that point. Who wants to go to Taunton or friggin' Everett when you can instead gamble all night in Double Bay, and then dip over to Cape Cod for some daylight beach time?

Bowtie

"Bowtie" would be a play on the shape of the new town. Yes, it sucks.

Keeping the theme, but changing the shape.... this (and the Casino) would be a big motivator for the Wareham and Pymouth land grabs. If we seize the Ponds sections of Wareham and Plymouth, we'd be shaped like a mini-Connecticut.

Squanto

"Squanto" beats out "Samoset," "Metacomet," and "Massasoit" for Algonquin tribute purposes.

Squanto has the best Q Rating, and would be the best tourist-drawing name.

I don't know how we could do it, but maybe Johnny Depp or the Farrelly Brothers could be convinced to re-invent Squanto as an action hero. Maybe he goes all Seagal on invading Mi'kmaq, or perhaps he even kills a Sasquatch that was menacing Priscilla Alden. Squanto's story is an amazing one, but it needs more kung-fu and dinosaurs if he's getting his own town

Have Any Better Ideas? Let us know in the Comments...

Winter's Last Snow? Pictures And Snowfall Totals

Cedarville

MASSACHUSETTS

...BARNSTABLE COUNTY...
   BUZZARDS BAY           2.7   930 AM  3/21  SPOTTER              
   EAST SANDWICH          1.8   500 AM  3/21  NWS EMPLOYEE          
   EAST FALMOUTH          1.5   703 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   HYANNIS                1.5   730 AM  3/21  MEDIA                
   WOODS HOLE             1.0   600 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER        
   CHATHAM                1.0   800 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER        
   CENTERVILLE            1.0   600 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   SOUTH SAGAMORE         1.0   619 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO            
   FALMOUTH               0.5   725 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO          

Aimed At Sandwich

...BRISTOL COUNTY...
   REHOBOTH               3.9   905 AM  3/21  NWS EMPLOYEE          
   NORTON                 3.6   700 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER        
   DIGHTON                3.5   928 AM  3/21  NWS EMPLOYEE          
   TAUNTON                3.5   700 AM  3/21  NWS OFFICE            
   SWANSEA                3.2   950 AM  3/21  SPOTTER              
   FALL RIVER             3.0   915 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   MANSFIELD              2.5   738 AM  3/21  TRAINED SPOTTER      
   NEW BEDFORD            2.0   511 AM  3/21  AMATEUR RADIO        
   ACUSHNET               1.8   620 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   NORTH ATLEBORO         1.7   840 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   FAIRHAVEN              1.5   625 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   WEST ACUSHNET          1.5   642 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO        

Plymouth, The White Cliffs... lol

 

...DUKES COUNTY...
   WEST TISBURY           1.3   629 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   EDGARTOWN              1.0   900 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER    

Bournedale

...NORFOLK COUNTY...
   MILLIS                 4.5   900 AM  3/21  SPOTTER              
   DOVER                  4.0   815 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   BRAINTREE              4.0   522 AM  3/21  AMATEUR RADIO        
   FOXBORO                3.2   815 AM  3/21  NWS EMPLOYEE          
   MILTON                 3.2   830 AM  3/21  BLUE HILL OBSERVATORY
   SHARON                 3.0   839 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO            
   FRANKLIN               3.0   700 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER        
   NORWOOD                2.7   736 AM  3/21  NWS EMPLOYEE          
   WALPOLE                2.6   737 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO            
   NORTH WEYMOUTH         2.5   638 AM  3/21  TRAINED SPOTTER      
   FOXBOROUGH             2.5   716 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO            
   RANDOLPH               2.5   545 AM  3/21  TRAINED SPOTTER      
   BROOKLINE              2.4   845 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO            
   WRENTHAM               2.2   811 AM  3/21  NONE                

Sagamore Heights

...PLYMOUTH COUNTY...
   WHITMAN                5.3   957 AM  3/21  TRAINED SPOTTER      
   HANOVER                5.0   534 AM  3/21  GENERAL PUBLIC        
   N. SCITUATE            4.8   657 AM  3/21  MEDIA                
   BRIDGEWATER            4.0   700 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER        
   ROCKLAND               4.0   720 AM  3/21  SPOTTER              
   WAREHAM                4.0   933 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   HINGHAM                3.6   928 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   MIDDLEBORO             3.0   700 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER        
   KINGSTON               2.5   731 AM  3/21  TRAINED SPOTTER      
   CATERVILLE             2.5   908 AM  3/21  NONE                  
   PLYMOUTH               2.0   524 AM  3/21  AMATEUR RADIO        
   DUXBURY                2.0   721 AM  3/21  HAM RADIO            
   WEST WAREHAM           2.0   745 AM  3/21  TRAINED SPOTTER      
   ROCHESTER              0.7   800 AM  3/21  CO OP OBSERVER        

Cape Cod Canal

I'm hardcore enough that I got in 18 holes today at White Cliffs. I also golfed.

Sammich

Scusset Beach jetty

Inland Cedarville

Spring's comin'....

Beach Management In Plymouth

Time and Tide wait for no man, and the feeling is mutual.

Beaches are not permanent things. Waves, wind and rain erode beaches, and shifting sands go where they may. It's how the world works, and how it worked for a long, long time before man arrived and started building along the coasts.

This natural order of things is all good, as long as you don't mind the fact that Monument Beach may become Monument Harbor some day. Oceans have a way of asserting themselves, and care little for these maps that men draw.

Of course, this natural order of things sometimes gets in the way of important things like Waterfront Development and Beach Access, which is where we'll be going in today's column.

You're looking at Cedarville, which is a better-sounding name than the more fitting "Wicked Big Dune." Cedarville is where you end up if you walk North out of Sagamore Beach. Their coastline is defined by giant, fragile sand cliffs.

Sand cliffs are very vulnerable to erosion, especially if they have no vegetation. You can pretty much see how it works just looking at the picture above. Rain and gravity move the sand from top to bottom, and the ocean washes the sand down the beach.

Much of the Massachusetts coastline is built that way. Scituate also has sand cliffs, and the erosion of these cliffs nourishes beaches south of Scituate in Marshfield and Duxbury. Saquish and her sand cliffs replenish beach sand in northern Plymouth, while sand cliffs in Manomet handle southern Plymouth.

Cedarville's job is to hook up Sagamore Beach, Scusset Beach, and Town Neck Beach. Cedarville's sand cliffs meet up with Sagamore Beach's sand cliffs, as you can see in the picture below. The flow of sand tends to be, as directed by the ocean's forces, north to south. The coastline south of this picture depends on these cliffs for their sand, lest the (present) coastline gradually erode away.

Sagamore Highlands has their own seawall battle going, and we'll write about that in a few days. I felt that you needed to know about the Dune Tram (see the video at the end of the article) more immediately.

Shifting sands are all well and good, unless you own a little cottage on top of those sand dunes.

Very few people say "Hmmmm.... I think I'll build my house directly on the lip of this 150 foot free fall." However, they didn't understand how Erosion works, or they underestimated how quickly it happens in the great scheme of things. That's how you get a house with Potential Energy that very much resembles a cottage version of Lindsey Vonn about to bust out of the gate and ski downhill.

Maybe the builders knew about erosion, but counted on it not being a problem in their lifetimes. I always think of Henry Beston when pondering this. His famous "Outermost House" was eventually pulled into the sea in the Blizzard of '78, but I assume that Henry Beston was long dead when that happened. Whatever design and location flaws the Outermost House may have had, it lasted long enough for him.

To avoid a Bestoning of your beach house, you need to put in some work. This generally involves building a seawall. A thick concrete wall running miles along the coast is more of a job for the US Army Corps of Engineers than one for a scrappy homeowner, but other options are available.... and necessary, as the US and Massachusetts governments seem to have given up on Cedarville.

In fact, looking at those cliffs, the government would have to build one of those 20 story World War Z-style Jerusalem walls, which would be a pretty expensive and exclusive job considering that it would benefit about 10-30 homes. Cedarville residents are on their own.

The home in the pictures above and below went for the Lobster Pot approach. The homeowner wraps scores of stones in metal netting, and uses it to build a base at the bottom of his cliff. The netting keeps the stones from being washed away one at a time in large storms. The stones, in theory, keep the cliff from washing away.

It works better if your next-door neighbor builds one as well, but you can't win 'em all, folks.

Here's a close-up.

There's a Rock Lobster joke lurking in the picture above, but even I won't hack away at that level.

You can also use this sort of pantyhose-style sand condom thing that the guy in the picture below favors. He looks like he may need to make it a bit higher, but what do I know?

I do wonder if there are laws against using beach sand for that purpose. I don't want to hassle the homeowner, as he has enough problems. I suppose that he may even be helping the beach, or at least the cliff.

I just think it's funny that a guy who lives on a giant sand dune which overlooks a sandy beach might have to import sand. 

Keeping the sand from washing downhill is just part of the problem. You also have to keep it from washing downstream, or whatever you call "downstream" with oceans.

This is where the Groin comes in. Yes, it's a silly name, one which the actual English English-speakers get around by using the more Olde English-looking groyne.

As near as I can tell (and I'm working from Word with no Internet connection, so we're doing very little research), the difference between a groyne and a jetty is that a jetty is at least partially in the water all the time, ideally to protect a channel or harbor entrance. A groyne is there to keep your sand from becoming Sagamore Beach's sand, and is mostly on land at low tide.

While they are more angry at the Scusset Beach jetty that is the north end of the Cape Cod Canal, this groyne is one of the things that the Trustees Of Sandwich Beaches people are all upset about. Every grain of sand that the groyne prevents from moving south is a little bit of Sandwich eroding into the sea, kinda/sorta. If you are ever driving on Route 6A in the future and a wave washes under your car, you're going to have to learn some Olde English if you want to place the blame properly.

This groyne is on the beach in front of (and preserving) the 18th Hole on the golf course at the White Cliffs Country Club. The hole is on top of a dune, as they haven't invented Beach Golf yet. The groyne was built in 2008, after some legal wrangling. WCCC would be a 17 hole golf course in a few years if they didn't have several groynes.

WCCC is one of my chill spots, as they have a lovely little private beach that, because of the 175 foot dunes, very few people use. They are taking steps to fix that, as many of their tenants and members are elderly.

Below, peep the photos and video of the brand spankin' new Dune Tram.

We were talking to a guy who bought one of the first units made available at White Cliffs, back in 1986. One of the reasons he bought the place was that the WCCC was promising a Tram to the beach. 28 years later (sounds like a Zombie film sequel, no?), WCCC finally came correct.

They utilized a firm called Marine Systems Incorporated (from friggin' Minnesota, of all places) to design the Tram, which was built by a Massachusetts-licensed elevator company called Above & Beyond. The tram operator had no cost figures when I asked her (and I have no intention of wasting a late summer morning attending the WCCC Tram Media Day tomorrow), but the cost I kept hearing for the Tram was six figures.

The Tram is the only one of her kind in New England, at least to my knowledge.

Like you even have to ask if we tested it out.....

It's the size of an industrial elevator, which I suppose is a good thing, because it is an industrial elevator. It is sort of set up like a ski lift, but you stand in an elevator car. It goes about one mile an hour or so. You'd beat it to the beach if you were walking downhill, and it would beat you to the crest if you were walking uphill.

The Tram runs 175 feet, and it is just what you want to see coming for you when Option B is walking up 15 stories worth of stairs after a long, arduous day of Beach. I'm told that the poles were hammered 25 feet deep into the dune. The ride is very smooth.

Added bonus? It's elevated, so vegetation can still grow in her footprint. The Tram is only a month old, and there's already some Beach Fuzz growing under it.

There is an attendant who runs the Tram, and a position of "Tram Operator" was being advertised for on the WCCC website. I may take that job myself next summer. No, they don't play elevator music.

However, "Dune Tram To The Groin" would make a good Dancehall song title... but they'd have to go to a coastal country club in Plymouth to film the video, and that would cost them a breathtaking amount of street credibility.

Check out the...

Dune Tram video.

You know you want one of these Dune Trams, so stop acting like you don't. You aren't fooling anyone.