I noted a while back the controversy over dinghy storage in Chatham. Let’s tag this one under the “clamming” strategy aspect of this blog, as part of my ongoing crusade on waterfront access, riparian rights, water quality, and the old ways of life around the Cape Cod shorefront. Expect more ranting on my part through this fall as beachwalk season commences and I start to spend more time contemplating issues ranging from the dredging off of 600 feet of Sampson’s Island to nitrogen loads in Cotuit Bay to the evolving nature of waterfront policy around Cotuit and the Cape at large as population pressure and escalating waterfront values pit the public against the private. Anyway — here’s the Cape Cod Times on a compromise in Chatham to let people continue to store dinghies on the beach. This is an issue in Cotuit and I find myself fiercely guarding my dinghy slot by being the first on the beach every spring. Yet the beach is cluttered with abandoned hulks and needs to be purged.
“CHATHAM — The dinghies can stay, but only if their owners play by the rules.
That is the essence of a new policy that grew out of a confrontation over the winter between a Stage Harbor property owner, the town and the owners of small skiffs used to access boats offshore. The small boats have historically been left on private beaches around town.
Harbor Master Stuart Smith and the owners of the property near the town landing at Champlain Lane, identified as Champlain Realty Trust, have agreed on a solution that will preserve the age-old tradition and allow the owners to have an orderly, clean beach.”