Most of Indian Island is managed by the Navy as a convenient place to store WMD, but the bluff and the beaches south of the county road are public, accessible, and wonderful. Two weeks ago we brought the Beach Watchers class here -- on a beautiful afternoon after they had been cooped up in a small room watching slides all morning.This one mile stretch includes the tombolo between Marrowstone and Indian Islands, a long stretch of till bluffs, and a beautiful spit that encircles a tidal lagoon. There are several different places you can park and get to the beach.
AERIAL VIEW
Net drift is northwest into Oak Bay, where sand and gravel once accumulated to form another long tombolo between Indian Island the the mainland. This was altered when they made the cut back in the early 1900s and the beaches have been sort of on their own ever since, although the east side (this one) and the west side have taken different paths.
We saw some fairly fresh failures in the glacial till bluffs, evidence of an oblique bar building at the base of the gravel beach, and some relatively recent overwash on the spit (recent means the last 6-7 years - February 2006 and December 2012 both had events that probably carried gravel over the berm, but there may have been others, too).Previous Posts:
Indian Island (January 2007)
Marrowstone Isthmus (October 2010)
Indian Island, Eastern shore (April 2012 - posted in October)
1 comment:
One of my favorites. There is also a nice stand of oak above the beach near the tombolo to Marrowstone.
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