Rounding Jeremy Point into Wellfleet Harbor, mariners in Cape Cod Bay are cautious. There, marked on all the charts, are the sandy fingers of Billingsgate Shoal – or, as it was once known, Billingsgate Island. In the mid-nineteenth century, the island was a mile long, a half-mile wide, boasted thirty homes, a lighthouse, schoolhouse, and a flourishing fishing fleet. Fed by a steady supply of sand from the inner forearm of the Cape, Billingsgate was for centuries terra firma, a charming coastal haven welcoming sailors to Wellfleet. When the dynamic forces that kept the island awash in sediment shifted, it began to disappear. When the community desperately added a breakwater made of riprap to protect its lighthouse, the island all but vanished overnight. Today that breakwater is visible at low tide, the last vestige of an island that was a familiar beacon of the inner Cape for centuries.

The Vineyard is safe from the fate of... Read more...