The irony of Oak Bluffs is that people so loved its beaches, they set about destroying them. They built so close to the ocean’s edge they had to defend their development with a seawall. And the seawall prevented the natural replenishment of the sand, so the beach eroded away. And now, as Dr. S. Jeffress Williams, senior coastal marine geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Woods Hole makes quite clear, there are only two choices. Either you remove the concrete armor from the shore and retreat, or you artificially recreate the beaches by bringing sand from somewhere else.