Written & photography by Tom Brightman
My wife and I made a big change last year, moving from the suburbs of Philadelphia to our new home on the lower Bellamy River in Dover. The impetus behind our move was to find a place where we could embrace the New England coastal and mountain lifestyle on a consistent, daily basis.
I’m not big on astrology, but, as a Cancer, I have always been drawn to the water, both in its liquid or frozen form. Whether it be kayaking on the Bellamy or the Great Bay, fishing for stripers in the Piscataqua River or along the coast, walking or boogie-boarding at Jenness Beach, snowshoeing the Sweet Trail, or skiing the Whites, the water that is everywhere around us is now a part of our daily lives.
We’ve become fanatics about marking the changing tides; watching the sunsets over the Bellamy; picking up plastic debris from wrack lines; looking out for horseshoe crabs mating in June; hiking around beaver ponds; and searching the skies for our local Great Blue herons, kingfishers, terns, and bald eagles as they cruise the skies and forage the local waters.
The change has not solely been about the obvious, like trading cheesesteaks for lobster rolls, or Yuengling for Smuttynose; it has been about embracing a region deeply imbued by its maritime history and culture of water, and a community passionately committed to protecting it.
We feel we are figuratively riding a rising tide in our lives, but we are also keenly aware that the tide is literally rising everywhere, locally and around the globe; and that it is up to all of us to help protect and restore the water that is all around us–on our coasts, in the Great Bay, and all the watersheds associated with them.
Tides change. People change too.
Tom Brightman is a Wildlife Habitat Biologist with NH Fish and Game, working on New England cottontail and young forest habitat projects.
He volunteers with The Nature Conservancy’s Oyster Conservationist program; the Kittery Land Trust; and recently helped plant a living shoreline at Wagon Hill Farm, Durham.
#EveryDropMatters
