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Sunday, August 16, 2009

Horseneck and East Beach

Nice weekend for the beach. The temp of the water at Horseneck was perfect but the waves were no good for body surfing. A crab pinched my toe hard enough to make it bleed; no foolin. There were crab carcasses and claws all over the shingle.

I got curious about the jetty and point to the east of the beach. When I drove out of the Horseneck parking lot I turned right and ended up on East Beach Rd which allowed me to drive out onto what turned out to be Gooseberry Island (or Point depending on who you ask). There is a massive stone jetty leading out to the island. There is room for about 30 cars to park and a boat launching ramp. The island has two dilapidated concrete observation towers roughly in the middle. Don't bother looking in them. They are trashed. Looks like a crack den inside. I can't help wondering why they were built. Was it to spot Nazi uboats?

There are tall reeds growing over most of the island and the mosquitoes breeding in these marshes are ferocious. It's better to walk around the island than down the paths bisecting it. The bugs attract lots of swallows who dazzle the viewer with their acrobatic flight. In turn, the swallows attracted a small raptor who's species I could not identify.

The water on the eastern side of the island/jetty is calm, clear and shallow for 200 yards or more. The island blocks the wind effectively despite being pretty flat. There are big stands of eelgrass growing in this lagoon-like body of water. (Is there a word for lagoon-like?) Plenty of crabs in the water here too. Saw shoals of fish; five or six inch fellers. There were some tiny, brown, centipede-like creatures swimming in the shallowest water. They seemed to be hunting something even smaller.

There was a huge amount of garbage on the island. Half of it looked like it had washed up out of the sea. We ought to put some unemployed burger flippers to work cleaning it up. That means you, Enrico de Nuevo Bedford. You aren't going to catch anything fishing from the jetty anyway, dumbass.

The neat thing about East Beach is that there is no fee to park there and there's plenty of parking if you get there in the AM or in the evening. If there's no space on the island, you can park on East Beach Rd. Pretty cool place to swim if you are tired of being bounced around by the waves and want to practice the breast stroke.