WCVB reporter Duke Castiglione was on Long Beach yesterday for the following story. Click on the link below to see Cape Ann locals and Castiglione at Long Beach!
NOAA extends emergency bans to protect endangered right whales
WCVB: Federal authorities have extended a ban on trap gear closures for part of Cape Cod Bay to reduce the risk of right whales becoming entangled in trap gear.
Right whales are critically endangered and scientists say their population has been decreasing since 2010 due to continued mortality and low birth rates.
The large mammals seasonally migrate into Massachusetts waters and aggregate in Cape Cod Bay in late winter and early spring to feed on zooplankton.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, recent aerial surveys have observed upward of 100 right whales — about 25% of the known population — within Western Cape Cod Bay.
Officials said high plankton counts indicate the whales will likely remain in the bay into next week.
The whales have also been spotted off the coast of Cape Ann.
The Salem News reports Marblehead has been treated to some rare sightings of right whales over the past several days.
Right Whales are feeding along the Massachusetts coastline on their northward migration to feeding grounds off the coast of Nova Scotia, amongst other northern locations.
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It looks like the whales will be in town over the weekend and I was wondering if you’d be willing to remind people to watch out for them, report sightings to our hotline 866-755-6622, and to remind everyone about the 500-yard rule, which applies to everyone– swimmers, drones, boaters of every kind including kayakers, paddle boarders.
Cape Ann Marina guests can see whales from their rooms! Back home from work and spotted three whales immediately which means that some of the six right whales have been feeding more than ten hours HERE. It’s thrilling! I even saw one head to Salt Island and back. They check in and circle together. Two are lingering off Long Beach on the Gloucester side. When two and three are gliding along, stepped back one by one nearly together in a line, and moving fast, the legendary sea serpent stories did come to mind.
Nearly as much fun are the clusters of whale watchers at the waters edge like schooner race photos of yore. I added a short video with Long Beach cottages and the stretch of sand in the background to give another relational vantage.
Long Beach video to show relation to sand and seawall–they’re further out now with tide coming in
Martin writes, “The North Atlantic Right Whales that have been spotted around Gloucester spent the morning feeding just off Long Beach. And I mean just off; in some cases, within 20 feet of the rocks.
They seemed to my untrained eye to be adults, much larger than the juvenile who visited Bass Rocks in 2015 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJVnGpiwigY). And unlike that whale, which seemed to be exploring and playing, these whales were feeding systematically.”
All photos copyright Martin DelVecchio
See Marty’s flicker album here for more North Atlantic Right Whale photos:
Update: we spotted five or six right whales at 6:30AM just off the shore between Salt Island and Thacher. They remained feeding in the area for 11+ hours. Two crossed past the Rockport side of Long Beach, and back again. They were surprisingly fast at times! Post was updated during the day with more photos and videos. I hope some photogs with professional lens will be sharing soon.
30 seconds 4 right whales out of 6 off Gloucester Ma, Long Beach, Twin Lights in backgrounds
1 min video tracking 1 of 6 right whales
How close? This close: here’s another image from an FOB whales out her window!
Is this Atlantic right whale detection app active?
Second post- close up
Third post after work– 3 whales still feeding here 11+ hours later!
Marveling at the tenacity of coastal towns- Cape Ann public works after winter storms are no joke.
Spring staircases
Rockport, Mass. The many access stairs for the Long Beach pedestrian walkway are put back each spring. Some years, the landing platforms on the sand side need repair. The 2018 winter storms pummeled each and every access point. Landings on sand and up top, the railings, and treads were entirely stripped. The rebuild for a few of the staircases will remain on hold until their immediate seawall areas are tended.
April 2018 stairs going in where possible
Water shoes this summer
From there to here: popples and rocks from the decimated barrier wall between Long Beach and Cape Hedge Beach were deposited along Long Beach.
barrier wall displaced and great swaths landed on Long Beach
Where’s the beach?
Spring 2018, the ocean is several feet deep at the rip rap line every high tide
Damage everywhere we looked this morning, low tide, about 8am, March 4, 2018. With surf high at low tide, we expect the next high tide to surge more.
Long Beach seawall sink holes
Long Beach seawall; Rockport Road; Gloucester and Rockport
Some evident damage to coastal homes in Gloucester MA and front row cottages by Long Beach pedestrian walkway. Surf inside and out found paths of entry.
The Long Beach pedestrian bridge was damaged. The boulder barrier seawall was cut down by half, maybe more.
rip rap exposed as far as the eye can see, Long Beach (looking from Rockport back to Gloucester, MA) Note every platform from the stairs was ripped away
Riley took bites out of the Long Beach seawall, and ripped out decks and fences wherever last night’s raging tide rushed. Debris strewn roads include large timber rails and rocks.
Bracing for high tide 3
waves as tall as homes
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This is a follow up about the public meeting held by Gloucester City Councilor Scott Memhard February 15, 2018 at Gloucester Lyceum & Sawyer Free Public Library on beach traffic and parking with a focus on his ward. This post includes Councilor Memhard’s meeting notes, and the Beach & Traffic Ad Hoc committee presentation to City Council. Look for information and maps related to Long Beach, Good Harbor Beach, Stage Fort Park, and more. Chances are your ideas or concerns were mentioned–doublecheck for yourself. Future public meetings to be announced.
Here’s the presentation packet to the City Council from the Gloucester Beach Parking and Traffic Ad Hoc Committee, January 2017
Here’s Councilor Memhard’s recap of the Summer Beach and Traffic public meeting held at Sawyer Free Library February 16, 2018 (advertised in the Beacon, Gloucester Daily Times, and elsewhere long in advance):
“The Ward 1 Beach Parking Ordinance community meeting last night at the library was well attended. We had a lively airing of concerns and opinions, addressing the specific Parking Ordinance proposed changes, and general, wide-ranging discussion of the problem and various potential solutions, including:
> expanded off-site parking* and trolly/bus service to the beaches; > better signage notifying drivers that lots are full and closed, with posted directions to alternate parking options; and > other practical steps to relieve severe safely, access, and disruption from on-street parking congestion in our beach neighborhoods.“
*park n ride options would ease traffic especially with smartphone reservations/options. Locales like Rockport, Manchester, Provincetown limit cars. Several lots mentioned maximizing extant options such as negotiating with Stop&Shop, Shaws, Fuller, Blackburn, schools, etc. Stage Fort Shuttle already established and more train/bike. Train-trolley services have a rich history here.
Thinking of those dealing with no power, evacuation and such destructive, icy flooding.
January 5, 2018 vs Storm January 4, 2018
Today here come the surfers
Rocks have clear icy layers and crunch pack, some pockets of drift
I’m following up on yesterday’s post, which was stopped midstream as we lost power. Scroll below for quick snaps and videos from my walk to Good Harbor Beach, Long Beach, and side streets.
GOOD HARBOR BEACH 1.4.18
About 2PM January 4, 2017 (high tide was several hours earlier)
Good Harbor Beach on sand looking out to Salt Island (from Good Harbor Beach Inn side of beach) Yes, the waves were rolling over the wall up to the homes but infrequently at this time. I don’t know what it was like at high tide.
(more Good Harbor Beach and Long beach below the break)
How close is the Cape Ann Motor Inn to Long beach? On it! So close most days they need to sweep sand out of the parking lot. They told me that they have been busier all seasons, especially since they renovated the rooms a couple of years ago.
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September 26, 1852 The increasing scarlet and yellow tints around the meadows and the river remind me of the opening of a vast flower bud. They are the petals of its corolla, which is of the width of the valleys. It is the flower of autumn whose expanding bud just begins to blush. As yet however in the forest there are very few changes of foliage.
path with poison ivy September 2017
September 24, 1852 …Am surprised to find, by Botrychium Swamp, a Rhus Radicans* …, – growing in the midst of a clump of barberry bushes which it overhangs. It is now at the height of its change, very handsome scarlet and yellow, and I not at first know what it was.
October 24, 1858 The brilliant autumnal colors are red and yellow and the various tints–hues and shades of these. Blue is reserved to be the color of the sky**, but yellow and red are the colors of the earth flower. Every fruit on ripening, and just before its fall, acquires a bright tint. So do the leaves–so the sky before the end of the day, and the year near its setting. October is the red sunset sky–November the later twilight…The scarlet oak…is now in its glory…Look at one completely changed from green to bright dark scarlet–every leaf, as if it had been dipped into a scarlet dye, between you and the sun. Was not this worth waiting for? Little did you think ten days ago that that cold green tree could assume such color as this.
*Rhus Radicans is poison ivy **and the sea all around us
Log entries focused on Thoreau’s observations of flowers in Concord, MA, are gathered together into a wonderful volume, ed. Geoff Wisner.
September 19, 1854 Thinking this afternoon of the prospect of my writing lectures and going abroad to read them the next winter, I realized how incomparably great the advantages of obscurity and poverty which I have enjoyed so long (and may still perhaps enjoy). I thought with what more than princely, with what poetical leisure I had spent my years hitherto, without care or engagement, fancy free. I have given myself up to nature. I have lived so many springs and summers and autumns and winters as if I had nothing else to do but live them–and imbibe whatever nutriment they had for me. I have spent a couple of years, for instance, with the flowers chiefly, having none other so binding engagement as to observe when they opened. I could have afforded to spend a whole fall observing the changing tints of the foliage.
Wisner, Geoff, editor. Thoreau’s Wildflowers, Henry David Thoreau. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016. Features drawings by Barry Moser from the 1979 book, “Flowering Plants of Massachusetts.”
A Barry Moser whale drawing is featured on the Gloucester HarborWalk whale marker.
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Good Morning Gloucester 