Green Eggs and Sand on Great Bay

UNH scientists are studying the American horseshoe crab in Great Bay.

I was fortunate to have a private tour of the University of New Hampshire's Jackson Estuarine Lab (JEL) at Adams Point in Durham today, thanks to Helen Cheng, a young scientist studying American horseshoe crabs here.  I connected with Helen while researching my book and found her enthusiasm for her work so contagious that I included a short segment in the book about the fascinating research going on at JEL.

Helen and her colleagues actually dive the bay each summer looking for juvenile horseshoe crabs. With the strong current and amount of mud found here, she describes it as very disorienting and like "diving through chocolate milk." You can get some research updates and learn some great facts about horseshoe crabs on Helen's blog and a little further in this post, too.

Queen Anne's Lace and blue flowers
line the path to the shore. 

For now, I'd like to encourage you to visit Adams Point in Durham just for the unique beauty of this quiet spot on Great Bay. (There's also lots to do here, which I'll cover in a minute.) Adams Point is a peninsula between Little Bay and Great Bay. We snowshoed here along the shore last winter; today, I found a whole different landscape, as you might imagine. The path to the shore was lined with an explosion of Queen Anne's Lace. (Unfortunately, these small photos were taken with an older low res phone, but I hope you get the general idea.)

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The shoreline on this part of Great Bay doesn't resemble a soft sand beach in any way, but it's a beautiful natural spot just the same. There are some very large rocks, even larger than what you see in this photo. Great Bay was formed by glaciers that came down from the Arctic, so I'm guessing the big boulders found here were pulled up from the bedrock by those giant ice sheets more than 10,000 years ago. Today the shore is filled with trees, rocks, grass, and seaweed, but is still quite walkable.

A Short Primer on Horseshoe Crabs
Before delving into the features around Adams Point, I want to share a little of what I learned about horseshoe crabs today. The first interesting fact is that while horseshoe crabs resemble crustaceans, they are not crustaceans at all. They belong to a phyllum that is more closely related to spiders. Also young horseshoe crabs molt, shedding their shells about every two weeks, to accommodate their growing bodies. Once they reach maturity (age 5 to 7), they no longer molt. This fact explains why you can find so many empty shells on the shore. And that spiky looking tail they have? It's not used for self-defense, but simply to flip themselves over. Who knew?

Each spring, the crabs make their way to shore to spawn. The females lay up to 4,000 olive green eggs in a sandy nest on the shore. (Hence the title of this post, which I borrowed from a Jackson Lab brochure.) This spring, the lab harvested some of those eggs and "hatched" them in the lab. I saw tiny, tiny crabs, no larger than a small seed.

Finally, UNH researchers here can use your help. If you see a horseshoe crab near Great Bay (especially if it has a tag on it), please take a moment to report the sighting at this online survey.

Things to Do At and Around Adams Point
Why should you head out to Adams Point...if you can't get a tour of the lab? Well, the Adams Point Wildlife Management area offers a 1.5 mile trail with many water views. People come here to walk their dogs, take a nice gentle hike or to snowshoe in winter. You can learn more about the trail on Hike New England. 

There's a very active bird population as well. I saw a heron today, as well as many other birds. There are osprey in the spring and bald eagles in winter. If you're a birder, I'm sure you can identify many more than I can.

Adjacent to the Jackson Lab is a boat launch suitable for both trailered and car-top boats. A sign on-site says it's usable only three hours before and after high tide and there's a caution for shallow draft and larger boats. Just up the road from the Jackson Estuarine Lab is the Great Bay Office of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), which has a number of walking trails that provide access to some unique marsh, creek and forest habitat. The Cy and Bobbie Sweet Trail is fairly new and offers 4 miles of hiking. You can learn more about TNC trails and property here.  (This one is still high on my "to do" list.)

Last but not least, I saw a sign on Bay Road for a Heron Sanctuary. I didn't want to venture down this wooded dirt road alone, but it's on my list for next time. So you can see, there's a lot to explore in this corner of Newmarket and Durham. If you have a chance to get out to this part of Great Bay, write in and let me know what you find!

Directions to Adams Point: GPS 85 Adams Point Road, Durham NH OR from the south, take Rte. 101E to exit 10 towards Exeter. Turn left on Route 85. Stay straight on 85 for several miles until you reach Route 108 toward Newmarket. Turn left on 108 and follow it through town for another three miles or so to a right turn on Bay Road. Stay on windy and narrow Bay Road for about 4 miles to the sign for Jackson Estuarine Lab. There are a couple of parking lots here.

Kayaking Great Bay

We kayaked Great Bay in Greenland yesterday. What a gorgeous summer day and a beautiful place to paddle! Great Bay is a large estuary (a mix of salt and fresh water), that is fed by seven rivers. The Bay interconnects with the Atlantic Ocean in the Gulf of Maine. We were part of a group of 16 kayakers who signed up to take a guided paddle from the Great Bay Discovery Center.

Doug and I aren't experienced enough to paddle a place like this on our own -- hence the guided trip. I would recommend this approach for anyone wanting to venture out beyond the smaller ponds, lakes, and marshes in New Hampshire.

Part of the beauty of Great Bay is that it's largely undeveloped. In the area we explored yesterday, we enjoyed wide open water with forests, fields, and marsh grasses embracing the shoreline. We spotted a deer and saw a number of birds including cormorants, ospreys, ducks, and swallows.

The water was smooth, although we had to paddle a little harder than we normally do since we were obviously contending with a current produced by the tide (more on that in a minute). We also encountered about four or five motorboats, but all of them were respectful of our kayaks.

Towards the end of the trip, our naturalist guide took us into a small creek lined with marsh grasses which was very pretty, but we didn't get too far because of a downed tree. If you decide to go this route, be sure to use insect repellant!

Overall, we both enjoyed Great Bay for a change of pace. I learned afterwards that there are at least 24 boating access sites to the Bay; each area no doubt offers a different experience. This is a large body of water -- something like 5,000-plus acres of surface water and 150-miles of shoreline. I guess Great Bay makes up for the fact that New Hampshire only has 18 miles of seacoast.

A Note on Tides: You should be knowledgeable about the tides before paddling this estuary. The timing of high and low tides varies considerably from one end of the Bay to the other. So you can't just consult a tidal chart for Portsmouth, for example, if you're planning to put in at Dover Point, which is 1.5 hours behind. We paddled during high tide. Once low tide sets in, the Bay in Greenland is about 50 percent mud flats. And as I understand it, you can't drag a kayak across a mud flat without sinking!

Conservation History: Great Bay is beautiful and protected today, but it wasn't always that way. In 1973, oil tycoon Aristotle Onassis planned to build the world's largest oil refinery here. To quote from a Great Bay newsletter, "Residents along the Bay knew something was up when locals started talking about strangers who were pulling up to the farms around Durham Point and offering 'wads of money' for the land." Thankfully, townspeople, organized by a 27-year-old housewife, organized "Save Our Shores" and successfully defeated Onassis' plan. Since then, the Bay has faced a number of other threats that have been fought by concerned citizens.

Getting There: The Great Bay Discovery Center is located at 89 Depot Road in Greenland. It's a really nice facility with some great exhibits, handicapped-accessible walking trails, and wonderful children's programs that make me want to be a kid again. Check their website for directions and more information or call 603-778-0015.