Metompkin Island

After climbing the Commonwealth's highest peak last month, we headed back to sea level, stopping along the way to pick up the female members of the family, and then on to Virginia's beautiful Eastern Shore. My parents live there next to Metompkin Bay, and from their house you can see Metompkin Island and at times can hear the waves hitting the beachfront. Metompkin is just one of a string of barrier islands that protect the Eastern Shore from the Atlantic. This part of Virginia contains the longest expanse of coastal wilderness remaining on the east coast. Most of the islands, marshes and tidal flats are owned by the Nature Conservancy as part of their Virginia Coast Reserve. Other parts of this ecosystem are owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia, or are federally protected, including Wallops Island owned by NASA and used for launching rockets.


The public is allowed to visit most of these islands if the rules are followed, but you need a boat - only one, Assateague, is accessible by car. These restrictions are necessary to protect the habitat for a number of endangered birds, including the Piping Plover, marine mammals and sea turtles. Unless the weather prohibits it, most of our visits to the Eastern Shore include a trip to Metompkin. We visited the island several times while we were on vacation, and except for the birds (and the hungry flies), we usually had the island to ourselves.

The first morning I got the sunrise over unusually still water. Some of the other photos might benefit from clicking to enlarge for a better view.



In the photo below, my mom is the tiny figure way down the beach. She is gathering shells which she hot glues onto straw wreath forms. She only uses shells found here. If you are ever on Virginia's beautiful Eastern Shore, you can see her handiwork at the Barrier Island Center gift shop.
... and Metompkin is full of shells. In places they make music rolling in the surf, and for beachcombers it is difficult to decide what to keep and what to leave.






Any interruption from the wind can cause vegetation to attempt to take hold.Plant life is sparse, comprised mostly of grasses, Wax Myrtles, the occasional Red Cedar and fleshy little things that can take the salt and sand.
From Metompkin you can see the abandoned Coast Guard Station on Cedar Island.
I love it when it is hard to distinguish between water and sky.

This is a view back towards the mainland - a floating raft of Loblolly Pines, fertile farms and small towns.