All Washed Up – Snapping The Globe

Everyone loves a good treasure hunt.

Especially on a beach…

The best part is that everyone’s idea of treasure is in the eye of the beholder.

Recently, with COVID19 restricting travel, I found myself with a lot of free time on my hands. Normally, in June, I am home only about a third of the month, with conventions, training and other events that take me away. This year, being unable to commute to work due to the loss of so many flights, I found myself wandering aimlessly around my home, looking for things to do, browsing my travel photos and just generally missing my usual lifestyle.

Sometimes, however, when one door is closed, another opens.

One of my best friends owns a house on the island of Cuttyhunk, just off of the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Every year, she opens her house at the end of May for the summer and every year, the invitation is extended for me to visit.

Because of the ferry schedule, Cuttyhunk isn’t the easiest place to travel to and only once in recent years was I able to work it out. Two summers ago, a few of our friends and I, were able to go out for a quick weekend getaway. Though we enjoyed our visit, it was too early during the season (and still too cool) to see what summers on the island entail.

As I struggled with being home for such a great length of time, Kathie reached out and asked if I would be interested in keeping her company for a while on the island.

Mindful of the cool weather I had experienced beforehand, it was an exercise in balancing my summer wardrobe with pieces that could still keep me warm for those crazy days when the ocean winds decided otherwise.

After finally making my way north and an uneventful ferry ride, I learned that being there in mid June gives you a new perspective. Things certainly were different than on my first visit!

There was lots more activity. More people. More boats in the harbor.

And the best part, for a warm-weather loving person like myself, it was bathing suit and beach weather! Well…on most days!

There are quite a few beaches that surround the island and we made sure to take our daily walks on them all.

My favorite part was how much the beaches changed shape every day due to the tides, currents and waves. It was interesting to find that while some beaches were rocky one day, they were sandy the next and you never would know what might have washed in overnight.

Kathie was always on the lookout for beach glass. Always amazed at how she could spot the tiniest pieces, I instead focused my attention on driftwood and shells, with my ultimate goal of putting it together to form some sort of artpiece.

As we traversed the mile and half long by three quarters wide island, we poked the soft sand and seaweed, strolled along the waters edge and analyzed the tide pools along Channel, Church, West End and Barges Beaches. Crab traps lay half buried in the sand, and crabs and other crustaceans, both live and dead, small and large, could be spotted everywhere we walked. Barnacles and and long seaweed fingers clung to the side of the boulders and lengths of rope, of all circumferences and colors lay knotted around pieces of driftwood.

Rubber gloves, which may have fallen from fishing boats, could be spotted and they were usually displayed with great fanfare and sometimes obscene gestures. The fishermen, who mark their traps and fishing spots with buoys, were probably disappointed to find that many of their markers had washed ashore.

There were some interesting seashells and colorful granite rocks ground smooth from years of being subject to the pounding waves.

Looking out to sea, it was always interesting to see the many boats making their way to the island, some from the mainland and some from neighboring Martha’s Vineyard. As we walked along Barges Beach, I mistakenly took the remains of the fourteen barges that litter the shoreline as shipwrecks. In fact, these barges were buried here in 1949 to stabilize the land damaged by a 1944 Nor’easter. Though they are slowing eroding away themselves, they provide a natural habitat for some of the island’s creatures and a place to capture some unique beach shots.