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...

The Army Of Two

America has produced some tough folks, people like Wyatt Earp, John Henry, Mike Tyson, Chuck Norris, LT, Sasha Banks, Batman... 

However, none of them turned back 200 of the world's best Marines. I'm not sure if Sergeant York can claim those kind of stripes, or even Captain America. In even his silliest movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't try to sell himself as being capable of taking on 200 elite Marines.

So, naturally, this feat was performed by two young girls from Scituate. They were unarmed, of course. They had no backup, and may have been raped or even hung as spies if they lost. As is generally the case when two girls decide to make a stand against 200 Marines, they used Fear as their weapon.

The War of 1812 was very unpopular in New England, and we discussed seceding from the US over it long before the Confederacy made it fashionable. This meant little to the British, other than an opportunity to perhaps drive New England out of the war if they made life hard enough for them.

Understand that Massachusetts was the first colony to send the Brits packing in the Revolution. We had already attacked British soil in Canada. The British had been chased with their tails between their legs from Marshfield, one town to the south, in the previous squabble almost 40 years earlier. There was no love lost, and the British Navy wasn't going to use the kid gloves when they decided to send a raiding party ashore in Scituate, Massachusetts.

Her Royal Navy spent quite some time smashing up Massachusetts ports. We were known as a haven for pirates/privateers, Falmouth, New Bedford and Wareham were torn to shreds by the British Navy in this war, and they had already whipped up on Scituate a few times. Scituate had ships stolen and burned. The British had shown up off of her shores in the summer of 1814, demanding provisions under the threat of more ill treatment.

The local militia assembled, and the British never came ashore. They never went away either, but the militia did. The Brits heard about this (Marshfield was heavily Loyalist when the Revolution started, and some holdovers may have been giving information to the Limey sailors) and prepared to pay Scituate back for not providing the provisions.

Keep in mind, the scholarship of this story is limited, and really good superhero stories tend to grow with time. This is especially true in areas with lots of fishermen. We're just going to give you the basic legend, and leave all of that further-study stuff to the reader.

In September of 1814, the British Navy made their move on Scituate. A ship, La Hogue, dropped anchor about a mile off of Scituate Harbor. They loaded the barges with Marines and started rowing towards the town. They had raided Scituate three times before, but had never come ashore, limiting themselves to burning/stealing ships. This time, they were coming to burn the town.

They chose a stealth approach, rowing towards isolated Old Scituate Light. Their luck was better than they could have hoped, as the lighthouse keeper (Simeon Bates) was away with most of his family. Only his wife and two daughters stayed at the station, and they were the first to see this less-musical British Invasion coming.

Rebecca and Abigail Bates were no weak sisters, however. They knew that the militia had dispersed, and that there was no way to get them assembled before Scituate was set aflame. Their home, a very valuable lighthouse that treacherous local shipping was dependent on, was probably the first thing that would be set aflame when John Bull got the matches out. They would also be the first young girls that 200 marauding sailors would get their hands on after a long time at sea.

There then commenced what I would say may have been the coolest teen-girl chattering that ever happened in America (I'm thinking hard on this, and can't get past 90210), and the two sisters decided that the British raid would be getting no further than them.

They chose an Audio defense. Grabbing a fife and drum, they hid behind a dune and started making a racket. History disagrees on who was playing what instrument, but they played loudly as they walked back and forth behind the dunes. Maybe they snuck a peek over the dunes now and then, or maybe they just put their heads down and had faith in the plan.

We do know that they played "Yankee Doodle" over and over.

As the Brits got closer to shore, there were five sounds they could hear. One was the ocean, one was the rowing, one was their officers' exhortations... and the other two were a fife and drum. Fifes and drums meant "Militia."

Two hundred British marines (I am making that number up based on a force that they used for a similar attack on Wareham) are nothing to trifle with, but even they couldn't stand up to what could be 1000-1500 men, all familiar with the territory, all crack shots who have to shoot their own supper a lot and who have had months to prepare for just such a siege. The British turned around and ran like scalded dogs. OK, they were in a boat, so they didn't technically run, but I don't have a metaphor for Rowing. "They had to Row like Versus Wade".... OK, I have nothing.

Exact records for the Battle of Scituate are hard to find. The girls both lived to old age, and would tell their story for anyone who'd pay a dime to hear it. Stories may get embellished that way. It's tough for a skeptic to debate a living, breathing Primary Source.

Likewise, the British have no record of the encounter. Very few men who wanted to advance in Her Majesty's Navy (I don't know if they had a Queen at the time, I just like saying "Her Majesty's Navy") reported back to the crown that "Well, your Majesty, we were going to burn Scituate, but my 200 toughest Marines got scared off by a couple of teenyboppers pretending to be Jethro Tull." Career suicide.

(Editor: References to the aborted raid on Scituate exist in the journals of some British officers)

American soldiers have been in some tough spots. Little Round Top was defended by a bayonet charge against an enemy who had guns. The Battle of the Bulge had Americans surrounded in a snowstorm by Hitler's best troops. The Minutemen gathered on a town square and stood toe-to-toe with the world's best light infantry..

The Bates Sisters have them all beat. Two unarmed girls went to war against a veritable boatload of British Marines. I wouldn't touch those odds with a six and a half foot Pole, and neither would Rob Gronkowski. It matters not... the girls ended the day in possession of the battlefield.

The Bates sisters and their victory were not lost on military historians. General John Magruder used similar deceptions in Virginia during the Civil War. It even came full circle, with the Chinese using whistles to intimidate when attacking Americans in the Korean War. Some even say that the Vietcong used a similar strategy at Khe Sanh.

The Bates sisters did it better, though... and they have a sign to prove it.

Music hath charms...

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...

Old Scituate Light

We checked out Old Scituate Lighthouse recently. We love lighthouses, and we'll get to every one in the area soon enough... 

Old Scituate Lighthouse dates back to 1811, for the low-low cost of $4000. That's a lot of $5 bills to be throwing around, especially when the guy on the $5 bill was still Thomas Jeffersoning. (Editor's note: Tommy is on the $10 bill, Stephen)

We happened to see Kareem Abdul-Jabbar there, and he was nice enough to pose in the foreground, provide some scale and make the lighthouse look bigger.

Steve, listen... if the article is called "Old Scituate Lighthouse," do try to not chop off part of the actual lighthouse (Editor's note: Steve claimed that the lighthouse moved at the last second when he shot it). It ain't that hard.

They need an Army Of One to hustle down and clean up the Army Of Two sign. The Army Of Two is probably the South Shore's best military story.

We'll do an article on it later, but the short version is that the lighthouse keeper's two daughters scared off a British raiding party in the War Of 1812. The British were coming to burn Scituate to the ground.

The girls thwarted that sh*t by hiding behind the dunes and playing a fife and drum. The British, thinking it was militia, turned tail and beat a red-coated retreat back to La Hogue.

The lighthouse is 25 feet tall and stands 71 feet above Sea Level.

She was deactivated in 1850, as Minot's Ledge Lighthouse made it redundant. Other than a brief reactivation when MLL was destroyed in a 1852 gale, it was inactive until 1994. It fell into disrepair, and only looks as good as it does now because of citizen effort. Her light still shines, as a private aid to navigation.

If you can't wait for our Army Of Two article to drop and want to research it yourself, the two sisters are known as either The Army Of Two, The American Army Of Two or The Lighthouse Army Of Two.

If The Bates Sisters aren't enough history for you, the lighthouse is also near where the USS Chesapeake and the HMS Shannon traded hands. The U lost that one, but the dying words of Captain James Lawrence- "Don't give up the ship"- became the battle cry of the US Navy.

But wait! There's more! This is also where the Etrusco ran aground in a 1956 nor'easter. The crew were rescued, and kept in various houses around town until they could get home. The ship was stuck there for several months, before being refloated, repaired and returned to service.

It tolls for thee...

Surf Check, South Shore, 1/20/19

As a big Nor'easter hit us, we sent shutterbugs out to the beaches to see what was up with Mother Ocean.

It was a snowstorm for many, but we got off the highway in Hingham looking for waves.

...which took us straight to Hull! 

The surf was up in Hull, although we were there about 90 minutes before high tide. It was also pouring, so we shot through the Windows.

From there, we headed into Scituate.

You could spend a whole storm in Scituate and maybe someday we will, but we just headed down the Driftway on Sunday.

Scituate, which isn't that far from Hingham, had much less snow.

Our next stop was Marshfield.

Vegas, like Scituate, has a hundred different places one could watch a storm from, but we sort of town-hop when we do Surf Check. Our coverage, like they say about how history teachers work, is miles wide and inches deep.

The Brant Rock/Ocean Bluff section is great to shoot storms from, because you get the tower in the background... a tower which we managed to obscure.

Green Harbor is also fun to shoot at, because you can use the curve of the beach to sort of get behind the waves... albeit from a great distance.

I don't know if they still call it Burke's Beach, but it's a good spot.

We're in Green Harbor, taking multiple shots of Green Harbor taking multiple shots.

Heading south to Duxbury for the next video...

Duxbury is a must-stop for any storm chaser, because it is where you stand the best chance of seeing a seawall collapse.

This rock wall is a private citizen's work. 

I literally just finished clearing that yard of rocks.

All storms are a little scary, but this one wasn't so bad. The wind was blowing across the waves, instead of behind them.

Duxbury suffered mightily last winter, and residents there are bracing for another winter of storms.

Nor'easter season has a February through April peak.

Most people there don't even consider yard repairs until late April.

...lest another one of these storms arrives.

It could have been worse, as the storm hit during a full moon. It trapped us on Cable Hill for an hour after high tide, Which is why this article doesn't have Plymouth, Bourne, Sandwich and Eastham sections.

The full moon means higher tides, which pushes the marsh water over the road. Try to avoid driving through knee-deep salt water, kids.

Sea ice (technically marsh ice) was pushed across Gurnet Road by the flood tide.

See you for the next storm!