The recent opening on Chappaquiddick appears to have closed again. On Saturday afternoon Edgartown artist Dana Gaines photographed the barrier beach — dry and dotted with surfcasters.
This historic footage of a home movie shot in 1932 shows villagers attempting to dig a canal by hand to open Norton Point Beach to the sea, part of a town effort to invigorate the shellfish beds at Katama Bay.
A storm last week sent ocean surf rushing over the narrow barrier beach, severing Chappaquiddick from the rest of the Vineyard once again. The question now is how long the opening will last, and few are willing to venture a guess.
The closure of the Norton Point breach on Chappaquiddick after eight years will likely benefit oyster farms and shorebirds in one of the Island’s most pristine natural environments, several experts said this week.
As of early in the morning on April 2, Chappaquiddick was no longer an island completely separated from Martha’s Vineyard. Nearly eight years after a northeaster cut a breach in the three-mile barrier beach that connects Edgartown with the smaller island, the Norton Point breach had closed.
The blizzard of 2015 spared Norton Point, the long barrier beach that is about to reconnect Chappaquiddick to the rest of the Vineyard, from further breaching. Chris Kennedy, superintendent for The Trustees of Reservations, reported Thursday that the breach remained as it was before the storm.
