I had a yen to get back to my sailing roots in the sedge and sand of the east coast’s barrier islands. I never had much taste for the developed portions of the islands with their mansion “cottages” and salt boxes. The city folks had a dream of living at the shore, formulated during summertime escapes from the city. They only brought the city with them with the social structures and closely packed dwellings, but they neglected to bring much of the culture.  It is the wide plains of spartina and the scrubby plants of the dunes that attract me.

The islands are periodically swept clean of history, but for the occasional bleached wreck, and the sedge behind them is the nursery of the oceans as well as the byways of migration.  Occasionally, it is good to escape the urban waterways, laden as they are with history, and get to the fresh salt air, the well scoured beaches and the fetid, bountiful, wetlands.

I endeavor to leave nothing but a few footprints soon to be removed by wind and tide. The goal is to not bring any more of the city there, though simply being there defeats that ideal.  These pictures are from New Jersey’s barrier islands and those on the ocean side of Virginia’s eastern shore.