Surf Check: Duxbury Beach/Rexhame

A minor nor'easter blew through today. Tides were astronomically low and no damage occurred, but we still got out and took some pics for you.

While it wasn't a flood tide, there was enough of a storm surge to top off Duxbury's Great Salt Marsh.

We got soaked a few times once we got to the beach.

This was a weak storm, minor splashover. The seawall repairs were never in danger.

You can hide from the rain and wind behind houses when the winds are from the North, which is why some of these shots are set back from the seawall a bit.

"Minor" splashover is a relative term, tied directly to whether it is your property or not.

One more pic, then off to Rexhame.

Sexy Rexy was about the same as Duxbury.

I had a nice concrete stairway to hide behind.

Daniel Webster's Sea Serpent

Loch Ness sort of has sea serpents locked down, but the South Shore has a pretty good serpent story.

Ours was "witnessed" by no less than Daniel Webster.

You can read all about it right here.

Daniel Webster And The Sea Serpent was written by Stephen Benet. He also wrote The Devil And Daniel Webster, where Webster goes to trial against the devil for the soul of a farmer. Benet had a Daniel Webster man-crush, or at least an author-crush.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

In this fictional story, Daniel and his friends are fishing for cod off of Duxbury Beach when Daniel gets something on his line that pulls "like a pair of steer."

Eventually, a vast sea serpent arises, shakes out the hook and charges the boat. Some men cower and one man faints, but D Web just stares it down. It goes away, and the men- to save their reputations- agree to not speak of it.

The serpent then haunted Green Harbor, letting out an eerie cry that drove local livestock mad with fear.

Hoping to prevent it from eventually killing a local, Webster armed himself and headed to the mouth of the Green Harbor River. The beast appeared, and Webster gave it both barrels. The creature sounded, her fate unknown.

Webster heads to Washington, where he is to negotiate a treaty with the British. However, he hears the sea monster again, this time coming up the Potomac.

He sends back to Marshfield for a local eccentric who claims to know the monster. The local speaks to the leviathan, who is female, and finds out that she loves Daniel Webster.

Webster, fearing monsterly retribution, enters into a relationship with the beast. I assume it was platonic. He'd bring her fish every day, Italian sardines.

Before he can sever the courtship, his treaty enters into jeopardy. The British have a powerful Navy and are threatening to use it. Webster takes the Brit to meet the monster, who prefers to be called Samanthy. She is large enough to reduce London to rubble. This revelation moves the naval treaty along quite nicely.

He inducts Samanthy into the US Navy, with a rank of Rear Admiral. She patrols the seas, and is seen with Teddy Roosevelt's White Fleet in the South Seas. Samanthy is even credited with helping out with the Monitor. As she ages, reports come in about her having 7 children.

They all fly Old Glory.

South Shore Surf Check

We checked the South Shore for waves as a powerful nor'easter moved away.

We started in Hull.

Almost the whole South Shore lost power for a while.

A lonely surfer.

Hull had the best waves on the South Shore.

...but the real action was on the South Coast.

Next stop: Scituate

From when I left Hull to when I got to Scituate, the winds let up somewhat.

Scituate is usually a Superheavyweight.

Off to Vegas...

Vegas was placid.

The 2 AM high tide was more gooder.

Off to Duxbury

I hope that this just washed out of someone's yard over in Duxbury Proper. Anyone missing a surfer?

Duxbury lost the Seaweed Lottery.

We took one more shot, then got to Wareham for a rainbow, below...

Surf Check, Duxbury And Marshfield

We went to the South Shore to check out the waves. This was Thursday. 

We started in Duxbury, Duxbury Beach in particular.

Horses generally don't mind a raw East wind, although this one was trying to get back in the car.

It wasn't that bad of a storm, we wouldn't be taking pics of horses and goldenrod if things were nastier.

Hardly any waves at all, why are we here? Oh, that's the bay side.

The Orca sank off of the Vineyard, but the current eventually washed half of it up to Duxbury.

We were forced to work at low tide, so no waves-hitting-houses shots today.

It wasn't that bad, even at high tide.

Maybe it is because I grew up on a beach, but few things are more depressing than an abandoned lifeguard chair on an empty beach during a grey water day.

Is that Marshfield on the horizon? Let's go there!

Green Harbor, still want to say "Burke's Beach."

Brant Rock

It's tough to enjoy the storm when you have to worry about Denzel chucking a mob boss corpse onto you.

I'd have had to snatch him up for that...

Some video, below. The first one is Duxbury, the others are Brant Rock.

South Shore Surf Check: Hurricane Dorian

Hurricane Dorian was south of Nantucket, but close enough for fringe effects like rain, wind and rough surf. 

We got out early (6:47 AM high tide) to see what was what.

We started off in Duxbury, because things tend to get wrecked there. I don't know who planned their wedding for today (see video below), but I wish them all the best.

Duxbury was saved some damage by A) an astronomically low tide, and B) the timing/placement of the storm and high tide.

If you leave your stairs up for even the fringes of a hurricane, you sort of deserve this...

I tore down this backboard with a 360 tomahawk, then we were off to Marsh Vegas.

Sorry about the blurry tower, but the wind was gusting with some tropical storm force.

No surfers were out, and we went to ten beaches between this article and the Cape Cod one, so we would know. This was rough, choppy surf, the slow rollers will arrive later.

Rexhame is where the North River used to empty before her course was altered during the Portland Gale.

Off to Plymouth we go, a bit past high tide...

Off to Cape Cod...