Coast Guard Beach in Eastham is consistently ranked as one of the most beautiful beaches in the country. It will likely continue to enjoy that distinction for some time to come. However, this year visitors may be surprised by some quirky outcroppings. Our recent blizzard carved away at the sand cliffs and exposed freshwater peat from an old cedar bog and some cedar roots. Lots of people came to take a look, giving the surfers competition for parking spaces out at the old Coast Guard Station.
The path down to the beach hasn’t been repaired yet. It’s National Park Service property.
The surfers are using paddles. (Yes, those are people, not seals.) The surf was rough, but no one seemed to be catching any good waves. The water was a chilly 40 degrees.
The peat has a tough surface, yet feels soft. You can see a band of clay in the second photo. The local paper reported that the peat had been covered by sand for 150 years (not that long, in fact). That must have been one heck of a storm. There was a lot of wood strewn about on the beach, some more interesting looking than others.
Our beach never stops shifting, whether subtly or dramatically. We still find chunks of asphalt in the surf from when the “perfect storm” of 1978 claimed a big parking lot. That’s why most summertime visitors must take a shuttle. When Henry Beston wrote The Outermost House, it was much further outermost than it is now. All this in a mere blink of geological time, all the more beautiful for being here on a limited-time basis.
There’s a big difference between a summer beach and a winter beach. Come summer, one theory goes, this may all be covered up by sand.