e x p l o r e n a n t u c k e t
POND-OPENING STROLLS TO HUMMOCK AND SESACHACHA
with Peter B. Brace
I'm lying in bed Sunday morning around 10:32 a.m. trying to come up with a walk for this week's column and I get nothing.

I've walked all there is to walk of the island's conservation and public properties. You, my faithful readers - all five or six of you - have probably walked every one of my routes in "Walking Nantucket" and all the trails I hiked in this series, which began in May 2005.

Last winter, I knew I was reaching when I started trying to piece together walks through town and through 'Sconset. But then I discovered the Nantucket Conservation Foundation's Middle Moors map and found temporary new life for the series with about seven more I could go on. This summer, you may have noticed that I gravitated more toward kayak trips and combined kayaking/walking excursions, but even with those trips Nantucket was getting smaller and smaller.

So here I am trying to squeeze a few more explorations out of this shrinking island and not wanting to get out from under the warmth of my flannel comforter. But when the compressor switched on several feet from my window at my new neighbor's seemingly endless - and always loud - renovation project, and the door of his rented port-a-potty slammed shut simultaneously, it hit me: John McLaughlin.

The most vocal supporter of my book, Johnny had suggested that I explore some of the island's public ways leading to the water since so many of them seemed to be mysteriously disappearing. And this week, the town is supposed to be opening both Hummock and Sesachacha ponds to the ocean near public ways that were still open to the public when I visited both Sunday morning.

Your mission then, is to get out to Hummock today at low tide and Sesachacha on Friday at low tide to watch these biannual openings.

For Hummock Pond, you'll be heading to a beach a few of us refer to as End-of-the-Road Beach. It's actually the beach end of Hummock Pond Road that retreats several feet inland each winter after erosion undermines the asphalt, forcing the town to relocate inland the concrete posts that block vehicles from driving over the edge of the island and into the great unknown five to ten feet down. It's a beautiful part of the island that is very accessible to all modes of transportation and is, at last check, still a public way not taken over surreptitiously by two abutters. Getting there is easy. Find Hummock Pond Road and drive or bike until you can see the ocean. I like to park just south of Moth Ball Way, the last road on the right before the edge of the island, on the right hand side of the road - left side parking usually yields parking tickets - so I have this section of the road as part of the walk.

Walk to the end of the road, wherever it happens to be, and hike west down the beach with the ocean on your left until you reach the pond. If the excavator hasn't begun digging the trench between the pond and the ocean, do not walk over the beach to the west side of the pond. If you get stuck on the other side of the pond once the ditch is opened, it's a pretty long walk up through the Sanford Farm property and back around to Hummock Pond Road to where you left your car.

For Sesachacha, drive out Polpis Road and take the turn to Quidnet. Follow this road until you reach a four-way intersection and go right at this junction on what is called Sesachacha Road, the public way whose pavement becomes a sand road leading into the dunes and onto the beach.

Before the sand part of Sesachacha Road, you'll find a parking area on the left side of the road surrounded by split rail fencing on three sides. Please park here, as you may have beaten the flatbed trailer hauling the pond-opening excavator out to the beach and will be glad that you parked your vehicle out of its way.

Exercise your public way rights by walking due east down to the end of the pavement, onto the sand part of this road and out onto the beach, taking a right and walking south toward Sankaty Head Lighthouse. You won't have far to walk, but remember, if the digging machine has yet to start trenching between the two bodies of water, stay on the north side of where the ditch will be. Though not as long a walk as from the west side of Hummock Pond if you weren't paying attention, you'll still have to walk all the way around Sesachacha Pond to get back to your ride should you momentarily lose your sense of direction while the excavator excavates.

What you'll see at both openings is the meeting of two ecosystems, herring swimming in to spend the winter in the pond and spawn, and eels heading out to do the same in the Sargasso Sea, hopeful fishermen casting for the season's last few striped bass and probably a lot of grey seals.

Take lots of pictures, because this is about as local as it gets on Nantucket during fall, next to pushraking for the increasingly elusive bay scallop.

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