Moody

I bike past these two things frequently. It often crosses my mind to stop and photograph them but sometimes it just seems too daunting to slow my roll, get off the bike and get the camera out of my pocket, especially when it's something I take for granted and know will be there the next day. And something that is seen so often tends to lose its impact, and I think, "Ho hum." But today I went to the oh-so-extreme effort to stop the bike, dismount, extricate the camera from my pocket (insert dramatic sarcasm here), and grab these two shots. Turns out, I love them. I've been off of social media for a while (the two Big Ones, anyway - my blogs and my YouTube channel I consider to be in a slightly different category) - best thing I've ever done for my mental health and overall quality of life - and having removed myself from the onslaught-ad-nauseum of mind-numbing images (and other peoples' brain content) I am enjoying - immensely - the slower process of printing the photos I love. There's no comparison between holding a photo that's been printed on fine art photo paper - holding it for many minutes and savoring it; leaving it in full view on my coffee table to enjoy through the day or even a few days - and seeing an image on a screen. Having said all that - behold, on your screen, two photos that I think capture Vineyard Winter Gray very well (better yet, stop by my gallery and see these, and many more, and have a conversation in person).

  Beach Road
Wooden Bridge

Devoid of Life

My typical end-of-day routine during the summer (and the reason I put up with the madness) is to bike the mile-and-three-quarters up to the Bend in the Road, swim a 1/4 mile, walk back to my bike, chatting along the way with people I know (or don't know), and bike home; my mini-triathlon. On Saturday I decided to do a little snorkeling, partly to get a better view for some underwater photography. So I flippered and snorkeled, face down, my usual 1/4 mile stretch. Okay, I didn't love wearing all the stuff, and I now know that swimming without having things strapped all over my body is much  more enjoyable, but what was most distressing was the fact that in that 1/4 mile swim I didn't see one living creature.

When I was a child, and when my own children were young, these waters were teeming with ocean life: minnows, pipe fish, whelks, spider crabs, sand crabs, hermit crabs, horseshoe crabs, and more. Many a happy beach day was spent collecting specimens for our salt water aquarium. 

My first thought was that the preponderance of swimmers had driven everything out. 

And then I remembered the mountains of sand that line this beach many recent winters - spoils from the dredging of nearby Sengekontacket - from the Bend down into Cow Bay, otherwise known as "beach replenishment." 

Yes, unfortunately, those mountains of sand have washed down into the water and smothered the ecosystem. Not just in the immediate environs, but all along State Beach, assisted by the daily tides. 

Why is this allowed to happen? Killing off an entire ecosystem, for what? And not only is the ecosystem at State Beach deader than a doornail, but this is stage two of a destructive process, stage one being the dredging up of entire shellfish beds in the pond and leaving the once living grasses, shellfish, worms, and other micro-organisms to rot in a pile of sand.  

Why, why, why?

Does anyone even care? (besides the shellfishermen I've spoken to, whose concerns are mostly ignored)

File this under Poor Martha.   

An underwater view off of State Beach. Deader than a doornail.
These striations must be mineral deposits of some kind. 
Nothing lives here. So sad. 
These mountains of sand are surely the culprit (file photo from January 2014). 
Mountains of sand as far as the eye can see, all the way down to Cow Bay.A nice sandy beach, but at what cost?

Underwater

 Okay, the other day I thought "Summer's over." How wrong I was. Today we were back in the upper-80s and the only place to be was underwater.

  My new friend.
Spider crab graveyard.
The sand below perfectly matched the water activity above: gentle swells, coming from? Not a boat, as is sometimes the case, but some kind of off-shore weather activity.
Under-water light show.
The young man in the center was having his very first salt water experience. The jury was deliberating.

Sunday at the Beach, Co-what?

We've enjoyed a fairly long string of hot and steamy Vineyard summer days (following a freezing cold and wet spring that made it seem that summer would never arrive), and my lack of schedule has facilitated being able to bike up to the beach almost every day. My routine for the past ten or more years has been to work hard all day, getting as dirty as possible with some yard or house project, then hop on my bike and ride 1 3/4 miles to Bend in the Road, swim 1/4 mile, walk back to my bike while lollygagging with people I might know (or not) along the way, and hop back on my bike and ride home for shower and evening refreshments and fiddle on the porch. Today, one of the hottest of these days, and being a Sunday, the beach was packed. I didn't see too many familiar faces, but everyone sure seemed happy to be on the Vineyard and at the beach.

Bike to the Bend

I rode my bike out to the Bend in the Road on a recent warm day - not warm enough to get me in the water - yet - but I did find a small handful of people getting an early start on swimming season. I was happy to see that the nasty nail and splinter-covered remains of a small shipwreck had finally been removed (after my having pestered various authorities for several weeks), leaving our town beach clean and serene again. I was also happy to see the dusty miller in bloom. It's the small things, you know.

Tuesday's Travels

The third sunny day in a row - we could get spoiled. In an effort to push myself a bit more, hoping to shed the winter pounds as well as the corona-blahs, I headed up to the Bend in the Road again, for the second time this week. It's about a four mile walk, round trip, and it even got quite warm on the sunny side of the road (the only way to stay away from cyclists who don't announce themselves, nor do they make an attempt to keep any distance, is to walk on the side of the road, facing traffic of course).

The shad bush is blooming - a sure sign that spring will continue to roll on through, world crisis or not, as well as an age-old announcement that the herring are running. 

Walk to the Bend

I'm not saying I'm running out of things to photograph, but it sure does feel like it during these dulled-down corona days.

There was a time when I walked the two miles (and back) to Bend in the Road Beach almost every day. It's been awhile. I'd like to get back to this habit. The good news is I'm getting a handle on the Lumix's macro capabilities (hint: MF).







A path less traveled.





Above -the Infinite Spider (lichen)

















I'm loving the bokeh on the Lumix.















Shipwreck



Waiting for dinner to be delivered.

There is almost always a red-winged blackbird in this tree on the edge of Trapp's Pond. He is usually heard before he is seen.

Trapp's Pond, with Cow Bay beach houses  beyond.

Above: another variety of the 17,000 species of lichen.

Above, last year's Indian Pipe.

Below: these tiny wildflowers on the side of the bike path were a sweet surprise. I should know their name, but I do not, nor could I find it anywhere.