Current Weather in Sconset from my Personal Weather Station KMANANTU15

Day 6: 40th Pole to Eel Point to Madaket

I had Josh as a companion for this leg of the trip! Sam dropped us off at the end of Eel Point Road, and we hiked out to 40th Pole and headed west toward Tuckernuck and Eel Point. What a beautiful spot! The shoals were in evidence and many terns and gulls flew back and forth from their nests to the slivers of sand amidst water.

August 16: Brant Point to 40th Pole

Dear reader,
I didn't swim from Coatue Point to Brant Point. Josh was the key to my transportation from the point of Coatue, via jeep through the inside route of Coatue (mosquito rich, with gulls in the ruts out of the wind and the cedars craning) past Coskata and back to Wauwinet and Sconset.

On August 16th, he dropped me at Brant Point Light at 11:30 am, while he and Charlie went out to lunch. Ginger once again did not accompany me on this hike...not because she was an outlaw, but because of the many anticipated groins to be ascended and sea walls to be scaled. Indeed, almost immediately I had to take off my shoes and socks and wade around the wall just after Brant Point light.

At the Jetties Beach, families were arriving to stake out their places for the annual sandcastle contest. Along the beach, the seaweed with slipper shells filled the edge of the beach, and my usual friends, the herring gulls, great black backs and peeps led me and followed me.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the camera with me for this leg of the journey. The sea walls were indeed fascinating....some iron walled, some huge boulders heaped high, some wooden jetty-like constructions. I even saw a coco bag filled with something....but in general the erosion barriers were quite unlike what is being used on the east side of the Island. The northern shore must have suffered as well!

Along the way, I saw my favorite beach sculpture of the trip: a hundred conch shells balanced on top of the posts of a snow fence! These must have been collected and mounted over the years!

Josh and Charlie were waiting for me at 1:30 just past 40th pole beach and we walked through the dunes up to the end of Eel Point Road.

August 9 Continued

This is the vista looking west as I walked to Coatue Point.

At the point, a colony of least terns was calling, flying, diving...yellow beaks ablaze.

I am not going to swim over to Brant Point, but I will resume my walk there.

Day Four: The Galls to Coatue Point

August 9, 2008

Phyllis and Josh dropped me off at the Galls (again without Ginger) for my walk to the tip of Coatue. This seemed like the most remote part of my trek...at other points of the walk I occasionally saw people at their homes, or folks in vehicles near Great Point. During this part of the walk, the people I saw had come ashore from boats with their families to swim and sunbathe. This is the only time I saw a group of over a dozen oystercatchers. Usually I see a pair or perhaps four.

The walking was easier with pebbles and eelgrass to walk on. This was the beginning of my seeing the shiny baubles of shells from Nantucket Sound.

Coatue is wild and I haven't spent time on its north shore. It is a gull rookery and the black backs and herring gulls screeched as I walked by. I was happy not to be inland with the mosquitoes, which are fierce out this way...as is the poison ivy. Many years ago, the sight of prickly pear cactus blooming on Coatue was part of my falling in love with Nantucket. And the wild desert poppies also live on Coatue.

Day Three: The Galls to Great Point to the Galls

August 7, 2008

Well, I am back at it...but without Ginger. This time Marcia and Josh dropped me at the Galls and they went to enjoy the view and the possible fish at the Point. Today's walk in the afternoon started back where I saw the terns diving. A pair of oystercatchers flew with me, as well as the the crowds of the black-backed and herring gulls who fly down the beach when I approach. A single white winged scoter out on the ocean, and a pod of 6 eider a little later on. The semipalmated sandpipers scurry ahead of me.

The end of the point is closed for the plovers...so we can only peer out to the true point.... But I always enjoy the Light House!

...and the seals frolicking. I understand that they are part of the southernmost colony of grey seals, which nests over at Muskeget. We have a smaller group of about a dozen seals at Low Beach in Sconset. I love watching from our house on the Sankaty bluff when the seals regularly swim by.

Day Two- Wauwinet to The Galls

August 5, 2008

Ginger and I started out early, before 7 am, to make our way from Wauwinet to Great Point, where Josh would be doing some fishing. The sun had risen, but the early clouds and light gave us a show.

The herring and great black backed gulls and their young were with us...and as we approached the Galls, a colony of terns.

A truck from the Trustees of Reservations drove up and.... Ginger and I were busted! This year, no dogs are allowed at all on Great Point. The ranger said "I'll have to drive you out." I asked him to take us to Great Point so I could let Josh know...and the ranger said ok, but "then you'll both have to leave. Dogs aren't even allowed in cars. "

That was the end of Day Two!

Before Ginger and I reached Wauwinet, we looked back to see Sankaty Light. Sankaty is not only my familiar beacon when I look out my kitchen window and when I lie in bed at night. It is also my beacon from so many Nantucket vantage points: it is there almost all the way to Great Point, and was an unexpected treat to be seen even from the South Shore. My favorite spot is from the top of Bean Hill, on the Milestone Road on the way to Sconset.

In the stretch near Squam, families keep their kayaks and beach toys out on the beach.