Maria Surf Check, Horseneck Beach

We went to Horseneck Beach in Westport MA on Thursday to check out some of the long distance surf rolling in from Hurricane and then Tropical Storm Maria.

We picked a great day for it, amazing late September weather. I'd have gone swimming if I thought that I would have survived it.

The wind was cutting across the waves, rather than pushing behind them. Didn't seem to slow 'em down much...

Did make the waves a bit messy, but they looked good.

Tropical Storm Maria is steamrolling East out to sea, but she should throw swells back at Massachusetts for a while. She'll be soaking Irishmen as a non-hurricaney low pressure area by Monday.

There's a High Surf Warning through Friday night's 6 PMish high tide for SE facing beaches.

There is also concern over rip currents, although we turn more Fall than Summer Friday and Saturday, and no one is swimming if it is 50 degrees and raining.

When I was a kid, a storm like this would wash up 50 lobster pots for the locals to raid. They switched to metal pots in the late 70s, and storms don't beach as many of those.

Westport was on some Hawaii 5-0 ish Thursday...

I didn't see any surfers, as the surf was pretty messy. Someone told me maybe Rhode Island.

May be Outer Cape tomorrow and Saturday for waves...

Westport had 6 and 7 foot waves at times.

Good show, Maria!

Pre-Jose Surf Check

With Hurricane Jose lurking offshore, we went to a few beaches to see what's what. We met the Weather Warrior up by Bert's in Plymouth.

Plymouth is a big town, so we also stopped at The Lobster Pound in Manomet.

Manomet needs a little off the top, so to speak.

The Tropical Storm Warnings are no longer applying to the South Shore.

"I am a rock, I am an iiiiiiisland."

I had to crawl down on the rocks to get better shots than the lazy NECN people in the van.

It looks very menacing if I zoom in, but this wave was about 18" high.

See?

Things will probably be a bit more perky tomorrow.

From Plymouth, we then headed to Duxbury. Duxbury was a bit far north for storm waves, but we may return there, so it's good to have some BEFORE pictures.

Duxbury Beach was fixin' to get angry, but it wasn't quite there yet.

Two of those equals Steve's house, no joke... that one has a better roof.

My camera levels well if I have a 1700 foot flat level thing to aim at... three or four times.

Whenever I look at this bridge- and  grew up in Duxbury- I always wonder what Evel Knevil would do with it. Eventually, you realize that nothing could top putting a ramp at the beach end and jumping the shark off of it. It worked for Fonzie, although the term lives in infamy.

There's no way Jose that a puny tropical storm was gonna keep ol' Poop Deck Pappy here from his appointed fish. I'm not picking on PDP, he's way cooler than I am and is most likely having a nice striper filet as we speak.

There would be a certain irony to being killed by a wind-blown lifeguard stand, sort of  the anti-Hasselhoff. Not a worry in Duxbury, though... they tip that ish over.

Best wave I saw in Duxbury, hoping Thursday will be better.

Why I never jog in the dark on Duxbury Beach... OK, that and 300000 Newports.

We actually started in Fairhaven, but we'll end up there now to give this article a snake-draft feel.

New moon high tide, should be fun tomorrow. We'll be out there somewhere...

Harboring: Monument Beach

Harboring stays in Bourne as we check out Monument Beach.

The gods saw fit to give optimal atmospheric conditions to a hack photographer like me.

"Monument Beach" isn't named for a monument... it's a corruption of the word "Manomet," which was basically the river that they used for the Cape Cod Canal. "Manomet," which itself may be a corruption of some other word, survives as a village name in Plymouth.

Everything in that picture sucks, except the sunset... but it's some sunset, huh?

I wasn't joking about perfect atmospheric conditions, I even got a rainbow.

Cutest boat in the harbor.

Photobombing ducks saved the blurry pic.

They either need more boats in the rack, or everyone is out kayaking at 7:30PM while it was raining.

I think the rain messed up my lens... let's forget art and just look at cool boat names...

Seems like a lot of boat for one seat...

They have a slip open, but you have to own a skinny boat.

Just one good shot, and we can send this to the Facebook.

That'll do...