Turtle Journal

Lieutenant Island Bridge at Blue Moon Flood Tide

Wintry weather and high tides combine to thwart access to Turtle Journal’s prime research site on Lieutenant Island.  A weekend-long nor’wester dumped nearly a foot of icy snow, and dangerously low wind chills clogged the shoreline with ice floes.

Waves Flash-Freeze on the Beach

Temperatures have fallen so hard that waves transform to slush as they reach the beach.  As though stuck in DVD pause, waves flash-freeze as soon as they touch super-cooled beach sand.

Lieutenant Island Road Two Hours Before High Tide

With slush and snow, ice floes have begun to form and to pile up each high tide in the salt marshes and channels surrounding Lieutenant Island on Outer Cape Cod.

Turtle Point  Inaccessible Behind Lieutenant Island Bridge

Snow covered Turtle Point on Lieutenant Island looks cold and starkly beautiful behind ice floes, flooded bridge and sunken causeway.  Under the ice, snoozing terrapins are comfortably burrowed in a deep blanket of muddy ooze.  Under the snowy dunes, 2009 hatchlings are buried a foot down in upland hibernacula.  All are fast asleep until spring thaw arrives in late April or early May.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 7:53 pm and is filed under Turtles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.