South Shore Surf Check, 9/19/20

 


We had a pair of tropical systems (Paulette and Sally) offshore. They were churning up the seas, and the surf was reaching the South Shore. We sent the team out to see what the happs was...


Why not start in Brant Rock? We posted up near where Charley's used to be.



Not really where you want to park, and I was in line at Washashore Car Wash in Plymouth about 3 minutes after the Sagamore Beach pictures at the bottom of the article were taken.
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Brant Rock was at high tide when we arrived, and everything after Vegas was well after high tide. As you can see from the blue skies, this wasn't a howling nor'easter or anything.



Unless you do storm photography, you never want to park anywhere that has wet seaweed. I could watch Vegas all day, but we had to move South towards the Cape.



Even far away, there was enough surge to flood onto Gurnet Road in Duxbury from the marsh. It was not a full or new moon tide.




A sneak peek at Duxbury Beach, through the opening in the brand spankin' new seawall.




We were at Duxbury after high tide, and we had scarfed down lunch before arriving, The wind was more north than east, and Duxbury faces more east than north.



The new seawall paid dividends, as some pretty rough surf didn't come close to soaking normally storm-tossed Ocean Road North.






I love blue water days with big surf. I still got soaked in Brant Rock, but that was more a case of me holding my ground for a shot than one of a wave sneaking up on me. That doesn't happen.

Narrator: Stephen B, were you ever caught slippin'?

Stephen B: Hell no!



Duxbury still has a few boulders on the beach from the seawall construction, although the new seawall is a bit too high for a Bert's indoor boulder scenario in an Ocean Road North home unless we get a Katrina-style storm.

Old timers get the Bert's reference. Badge of honor, IMHO.



We couldn't linger in Duxbury too long, because it was well after high tide and we still had Plymouth and Bourne on the docket. We tend to hit and run for smaller storms, whereas with larger storms, we choose a spot and stay there.



Plymouth, Manomet in particular.



Nothing really stormy here, I just like the little house.






We tend to work from cliffs in Plymouth. It makes for a weaker shot, but it is easier to slip down to Sagamore from here than it is from up around the Mayflower. We cover two towns with one highway exit any chance we get.






Since Steve lives in Bourne, we'll finish up there. Sagamore Beach, in particular. If we cross the bridge, it means writing a second Surf Check article for Cape Cod. The Cape had better waves today, but an angrier storm is headed our way Tuesday and Wednesday, and we don't want to get Nauset Fatigue before the big waves start coming.




We were about two hours after high tide, and the surf was beginning to pull back from the Massachusetts coast. A good place to end this trip. As noted before, we consider Sagamore Beach- which is in Barnstable County- to be the natural terminus of the South Shore.



We always shoot towards Sandwich, so we can loophole-spam this article into Cape Cod Facebook groups.






See you Tuesday!




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