by Rick Winterson
Certainly, it’s a bit of an exaggeration to call the waters off of South Boston “seas”. And they are most emphatically not the South Seas – they’re much colder. But unlike other Boston neighborhoods, we do have seven beaches, and they stretch for more than three divine miles along our shores.
Now, admittedly South Boston is an urban neighborhood. It is firmly connected to Boston, a diverse, world-class city of 640,000 people. So, it’s easy to forget that South Boston is actually a maritime community; the boundaries of South Boston are over 80% salt water. Take a look at any map of South Boston – from the Fort Point Channel, to the Waterfront and the Reserved Channel, around Castle Island and Pleasure Bay, past the L to Carson Beach, and ending at Mother’s Rest – it’s all South Boston shoreline and all salt water.
Just wait till the Waterfront and the Power Station developments are completed. And then, watch Conley Terminal and the Flynn Cruiseport as added shipments from the expanded Panama Canal begin to arrive. Yes, we’re a maritime community. South Boston even has a lobster wharf.
But the largest segment of South Boston’s shoreline is its beaches. And here’s the best news of all: Our beaches are squeaky clean. We have just received water quality results from Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, and with one small exception, our beaches are 100% acceptable, 100% of the time. You would have to go north to Winthrop or as far south as Nantasket to find beaches as clean as ours.
In fact, the only “excursion” (as they are called) occurred in Pleasure Bay, which is partly walled off from the open ocean by the causeway. For just one week last year, its test reading was high. It’s back to normal now; it’s something that happens now and then with enclosed shorelines. The rest of our beaches were all 100%, all the time.
You ask, “What are the seven beaches of South Boston?” Well, they are Pleasure Bay, the beach outside the causeway to the Sugar Bowl, M Street Beach (hook-up city), the “L” beach at the Curley Center, K Street Beach, Carson Beach, and the Old Harbor curve from the McCormack Bathhouse around to Mother’s Rest.
The unofficial first week of summer is here. Become a part of South Boston’s summer lifestyle – along clean, sunny, vibrant, uncrowded miles of beaches (uncrowded except for M Street Beach on weekends). You can even eat along our beaches – at Sully’s of course, from various food trucks, and even Molly Moo’s, which we’ve heard is opening up on the McCormack Bathhouse plaza.
