Poplar Island
Steve Blakely
We recently got a tour of Poplar Island, just off the Eastern Shore below Bloody Point, and I would strongly recommend that any local sailors visit the place. Some photos from our trip are on Hayden's photosite at http://tinyurl.com/3nul296 and USACE project website is here: www.nab.usace.army.mil/Projects/PoplarIsland/
Poplar was one of the bay's disappearing islands until the F&WL Service and Army Corp teamed up to rebuild it to its 1800's footprint. Went from <3 acres in the 1990s to nearly 1800 acres today, and from only 3 nesting species of birds to over 200. It is by far the biggest wildlife habitat restoration project in the bay and an absolute raging environmental success, not just with birds but especially with endangered Diamondback Terrapins.
The island is now home to the largest and most successful terrapin restoration project on the bay (there are no fox or raccoon, their major predators), and the project has spawned the Terrapin Headstart Program: They take about 200 hatchlings from Poplar every year, farm them out to elementary schools around Maryland for students to “adopt” and raise for a year, and then in the late spring bring the kids and parents and teachers out to Poplar to release the almost-full-size turts. Survival rate on PI is around 90 percent, impossible in the wild. Interesting research finding: Staff says the kids always seem to be happy to let their turtles go -- it's the parents who melt down and bawl.
I first anchored at PI 30 years ago and saw it disappear with stunning speed. Now, because they’ve built the rip-rap so high, it is impossible to see what’s going on there when you sail past on the water, but it’s a huge site. USACE runs tours to the island out of Knapps Narrows on Tilghman Island, a short ride just to the SE, or a bit beyond St. Michaels if you drive there. Contact for tours is Laura Baldwin, MD Environmental Service, lb...@menv.com, 410/770-6503: All they need is a minimum of 8 people for the (free) boat ride out from Knapps Narrows, and demand for the tours is pretty high.
Note: If you go to PI in your own boat, be advised it is a harbor of refuge ONLY for shoal-draft vessels, and that you cannot land on the island in your dinghy. USACE has the channel to their dock nicely marked with a lighted gate, but outside the channel is only 5-6 ft. MLT. We arrived just before a hellacious bay thunderstorm last week, which saw 45 mph winds sustained, 65 mph gusts, and ~3 ft. waves in a well-protected harbor. Since I draw less than 3 ft. with the board up, we avoided contact with the bottom, but probably not by much. Holding is excellent: With 25-1 scope, we never dragged an inch during the 90 mins. of sustained storm and near-hurricane-force gusts. The boat did make some noises I had never heard before.
This is a unique place in the Chesapeake Bay and a rare example of extremely effective govt. coordination and success.
-- sb
Steve Blakely
IP 26, Bearboat
Galesville, MD
blak...@gmail.com
Travel clips: https://bearboat.wordpress.com/
Photos: https://sblakelyphotos.wordpress.com/
zeebold...@cs.com
Washington, D.C.
T34C Esmeralda
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