We went on a camping out on Monomoy Island on Saturday. Our timing had to fit with the weather conditions. It was too windy Friday and early Saturday morning. We were able to go from the Barn Hill Town Landing at 11am on Saturday. The ranger and Stage Harbor Excursions ferried us over. We hiked about half a mile from the beach landing to the lighthouse and setup our tents in an open area to the east of the lighthouse.
After a peanut butter and jelly sandwich lunch, we did service projects. We split up into 3 groups. One group pickup trash along the beach north of our campsite, another picked up trash to the south, and another worked on digging out a modern boat shipwreck on the beach. For the trash pickup, each scout carried a large garbage bag. We collected a fair bit of trash including bouys, rope, bottles, balloons and lightbulbs with thick glass.
It became increasingly windy in the late afternoon. The tents had to be extra secured, especially the larger tents. A couple scouts packed up their tents and joined tents of other scouts. Without trees or other shelters, the wind was strong on the tents and pushed them around.
We had a chance to climb to the top of the lighthouse for great 360-degree views.
For dinner, we setup our gas stoves on the deck of the lighthouse. We boiled water to make Mountain House meals, mac-n-cheese and some oatmeal. After dinner we visited a bit with the ranger and a couple staff members working on bird studies. The lighthouse had some posters on the history. We didn’t stay very long because we wanted to get back to camp to check on how the tents were holding up to the wind.
We hunkered down in our tents and went to bed fairly early because we couldn’t have a campfire and it was so cool and windy. Overnight it rained lightly.
We got up an hour before sunrise to pack up and then hiked out to the landing beach by 7am. There was a storm to the south and it was getting more windy with some whitecaps. So we wanted to head back as early as possible. Fortunately the rain stopped by sunrise. The boat ride was a bit spotty on the way home and not too rough.
Monomoy Island was quiet, beautiful and large. We saw several large flocks of birds and many seals.
