What a fall.
Yet another northeast storm has come and gone.
At home yesterday afternoon, as dark neared I stepped outside for a moment, and heard a miles-away call.
The call of the surf at Black Point.
How could I not go?
There was already another walker on the beach. Where did he come from? Where I’ve parked there are no other cars, no other tire tracks, not other footprints.
To the east is Black Point Pond. It’s a perfect duck-hunting day, with wind and low clouds.
To the south and to the west is dunes’ spume-limned crest.
Storm after storm has come.
Wind after wind, tide after tide, wave after wave.
In the confrontations, the dunes have yielded.
There are many places where the dunes have been breached.
Washover.
Wave-carried and wind-driven sand has covered areas where beach grass once stood a foot and a half tall.
Washover. We also see Little Black Point Pond, outwash plain, distant hills, and darkening sky.
Next spring, endangered and still-rare piping plovers will seek out these washovers for nesting sites.
The bare sand will provide a visibility “moat” for the birds, and will allow chicks and adults access to both pond and ocean.
No loss without gain.
Later, on the beach, I’ll meet that walker.
He’s much older than I am.
We’ve known each other for fifty or sixty years.
I’ve been on this beach thousands of times.
He’s probably been down here tens of thousands.
solitary seekers acknowledge without breeching
Lovely. Yesterday I was visiting with my friend Becky out at Edgartown’s Great Plains. The ocean, a bit less than a mile away, sounded like several freight trains.
It is beautiful to hear your connection with and observation of nature.