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April
20, 2011
Walking
Ocracoke’s beach with Henry David Thoreau: Part 3
By
PAT GARBER
‘The ocean is a wilderness reaching round the globe, wilder
than
a Bengal jungle.”
--Henry
David Thoreau
I decided to complete the third part of my “Walking with Thoreau”
expedition in mid-March, after the gasoline prices had sky-rocketed a
few days before, so I did not feel right about asking anyone to drive
me to my taking-off spot at the Pony Pens. Instead, I drove my truck,
with my bicycle loaded in the back, to the Airport ramp. I left my
truck there and headed up Highway 12 on my bike, anticipating a good
work-out and an enjoyable ride. It was both.
I had not ridden a bicycle that far up Ocracoke for a good while, and I
had forgotten what a different impression the drive made when not
speeding by at 55 mph. My bike is a funky affair of orange hue, dotted
with rust spots, its seat wrapped in a turquoise plastic bag and
secured with duct tape. The wheels screech on occasion, and sometimes
the right pedal sticks. At no time could it ever be described as fast,
and I am always grateful that it gets me to my destination at all.
From its seat, I had an excellent view of things not often noticed in
my truck. I stopped for a moment at a stone marker, half hidden by
brush, a sad reminder of a fatal car accident which had taken place
there. When Thoreau walked across Cape Cod, he wrote not only about the
beach but about the whole area, including the bay side, and the people
who lived on the cape. I wanted to do a bit of the same on Ocracoke.
Past the campground I saw, to my left, dunes that were far taller than
I had ever noticed. There was a little path near one, so I pulled over
and hiked up to the top. From there I surveyed a world of miniature
mountains folding into the distant Pamlico Sound --a sight that seemed
quite remarkable to me.
Thoreau wrote about how he believed similar hills at Cape Cod were
formed, saying:
“Beach-grass
during the
spring and summer grows about two feet and a half. If surrounded by
naked beach, the storms of fall and winter heap up the sand on all
sides, and cause it to rise nearly to the top of the plant. In the
ensuing spring the grass sprouts anew; is again covered with sand in
the winter; and thus a hill or ridge continues to ascend as long as
there is a sufficient base to support it...Sand hills formed in this
way are sometimes one hundred feet high and of every variety of form,
like snow-drifts, or Arab tents, and are continually shifting...”
A little farther on, I noticed a path that cut across the dunes.
Parking my bike and following it, I soon found myself on the shore of
Pamlico Sound. Piles of grassy seaweed, Zostera marina, also known as
eel grass, were tucked up against dead trees and other jetsam. This was
the seaweed I hauled from the sound's shores to tuck along my flower
borders. It was the mainstay of the small goose known as the brant and
provided habitat for numerous marine organisms.
Thoreau wrote about Cape Cod's western shore and its Zostera, saying: 
“The western
shore was
nearly as sandy as the eastern, but the water was much smoother, and
the bottom was partially covered with the slender grass-like seaweed
(Zostera), which we had not seen on the Atlantic side.”
Back on the road, I pedaled into the parking area across from the pony
pen, and I glanced over at the two horses that stood behind the fence.
I allowed myself a moment of regret that the famed wild ponies of
Ocracoke no longer ran wild. Walking across the dunes toward the ocean,
I imagined them running through the surf, plunging joyfully through the
waves. I hoped that one day their freedom would, at least to some
extent, be restored.
Thoreau spoke often about seeing horses at Cape Cod, although he did
not mention wild ones. Upon seeing a newly born colt, he wrote with
whimsy:
“They are as
precocious
as young partridges...Probably they expand at once on coming to the
light and air, like a butterfly that has just come out of its
chrysalis.”
On his June, 1857, walk at the Cape, he described a scene that was
probably common on Ocracoke two centuries ago, when islanders
transported ponies to Hatteras:
“Saw them
swim three
horses across from Saquish Head to the island, a quarter of a mile or
more. One rows a small boat while a man holds the bridle. At first the
horses swam faster than the man could row, but soon they were somewhat
drawn after the boat.”
Having reached my destination, I tucked my bicycle behind a stand of
yaupon trees and hiked along the path to the beach. The wind was light,
the sky a mix of cirrus white and deep blue, and there was no sign of
visible life. No dolphins plunged near the surf, no sea birds fished,
no humans strolled the shore.
It was far from being a boring day, however, for it gave me time to
observe and reflect on things not always noticed. After a while I sat
down on a small dune just a little south of the Ocracoke Pony Pens and
pulled out my worn copy of Thoreau's “Cape Cod.”
“Before the
land rose out
of the ocean, and became dry land, chaos reigned; and between high and
low water mark, where she is partially disrobing and rising, a sort of
chaos reigns still, which only anomalous creatures can inhabit...”
I had been paying attention to that area between high and low water
mark as I walked, where Thoreau's chaos does indeed still reign. More
specifically, I had been watching the formation and dissipation of the
sea foam--countless bubbles that each wave creates and hurls onto shore.
It reminded me of a time when, as a child, I had poured way too much
dish detergent liquid into the kitchen sink and turned on the tap,
watching soapsuds fill the tub and overflow in snowy splendor onto the
floor. Or, watching one particular bubble as it expanded, glittering
with iridescent colors until it burst, like blowing bubbles through a
wand at a child's birthday party.
I wondered what created these bubbles. There was no soap detergent or
bubblebath in the ocean, just this constant chaotic “disrobing and
rising,” where energy, air, and water met. The mix emerged as a bubbly
froth which rushed up onto the beach, then melted away as each bubble
reached its peak and burst. Sometimes the bubbles left little patterns
in the sand before the next wave washed them away.
Thoreau referred to this froth when he wrote:
“The white
breakers were
rushing to the shore; the foam ran up the sand, and then ran back as
far as we could see...as regularly as the master of a choir beats time
with his white wand...”
It was Sunday, nearing 11 o'clock now, a time when many would be
heading for church. I am not a church-goer, nor am I affiliated with
any formal religion, although I respect the beliefs of those who are.
For me, this great expanse of sand and sea was as holy a place as I
could imagine, and I tend to agree with Thoreau, who wrote in his 1857
account:
“All genuine
goodness is
original and as free from cant and tradition as the air. It is heathen
in its liberality and independence on tradition.”
Wanting to know more about Thoreau's thoughts on religion and such
things, I sat down and scanned the pages of his book. Referring to the
town of Eastham, he wrote:
“..they very
early built
a small meeting-house, twenty feet square, with a thatched roof through
which they might fire their muskets --of course, at the Devil. In 1662,
the town agreed that a part of every whale cast on shore be
appropriated for the support of the ministry...Think of a whale having
the breath of life beaten out of him by a storm, and dragging in over
the bars and guzzles, for the support of the ministry! What a
consolation it must have been to him!”
A few miles below Manomet, Thoreau spent the night with a prayerful man
about whom he wrote:
“...the
worst of it is
that these evidences of ‘religion’ are no evidence to the traveler of
hospitality or generosity. Though he hears the sound of family prayer
and sees sanctified faces and a greasy Bible or prayer-book, he feels
not the less that he is in the hands of the Philistines...”
I found many comments throughout the book which, while often
tongue-in-cheek, indicated that Thoreau distrusted organized religion.
Walking farther down the beach, I glanced leeward, noting absently the
row of electric poles that stood at regular intervals along the island.
Thoreau's 1857 trek took place soon after a similar set of poles and
wires was installed on Cape Cod. He wrote, referring to a treeless
plain:
“…the new
telegraph wires
are a godsend to the birds, affording them something to perch on.”
As I neared the airport I came upon what I at first thought was a small
blue balloon. Knowing how dangerous these seemingly harmless toys could
be to sea turtles, I reached down to pick it up. Seeing it more
clearly, I realized that it was not a balloon at all but a small
Portuguese man-of-war -- a kind of jellyfish whose tentacles can retain
their powerful sting even when dead and dried up, as this one was.
It was because of the close resemblance that balloons have to these and
other jellyfish that they are so deadly if they reach the ocean.
Despite their sting, jellyfish are a favorite food of leatherbacks and
other sea turtles. A helium balloon, released at a birthday party and
blown into the ocean, may look like dinner to a passing leatherback,
but it is a death sentence as well. Sea turtle necropsies had, I knew,
revealed alarming numbers of turtle stomachs stopped up and entwined
with balloons.
Thoreau wrote about this same topic in 1849:
“You might
make a curious
list of articles which fishes have swallowed,--sailors' open
clasp-knives, and bright tin snuff-boxes, not knowing what was in
them,--and jugs, and jewels, and Jonah...”
A new sound met my ear, and I turned to watch a single-engine plane
take off, flying close over my head. I was approaching the airport, and
my day's beach walk was ending. Wondering what Thoreau would have
thought of that sight, I headed up the ramp to where I had left my
truck. I drove back to retrieve my bicycle and went home, bidding
farewell, at least for the day, to the place where Thoreau wrote:
“... a man
may stand
there and put all America behind him...”
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