Hammocks Beach State Park - Bear Island

Bear Island

Bear Island, which is four mile long and has a south-facing beach, is characterized by an extensive dune system, a pocket of maritime forest, and a shrub thicket and marsh on the north, or sound side of the island. It is popular with daytrippers, boaters, kayakers and campers. While it serves a recreational function, with a new bath house and primitive camping sites, the vast majority of the island is wild and undisturbed. Most of the animals on Bear Island flew or swam through tidal creeks and marshes to make their home on the island. Fresh water is scarce and only found in a few ponds in the forest between some dunes. Recent hurricanes have had a considerable impact on the oceanfront beach/dune system.

A ferry service runs from the Hammocks Beach State Park headquarters on the mainland to Bear Island via Cow Channel. While the ride, which some 200,000 people a year take, is only 15 minutes long, it is narrow and winding. The channel has increasingly become more difficult to navigate at low tide since 1996 due to sand migration in the estuary and a series of hurricanes. Shoaling in the channel has been constant since ferry operations began in the early 1960s, and has worsened in recent years due to hurricane activity, particularly in the half-mile stretch of the channel nearest the island. During low tides, the park has used 11-passenger skiffs to ferry passengers rather than its 40-foot (12 m), 28-passenger boats. The ferry service was temporarily curtailed in 2002 because at low tide, the water was "extremely low" in a 200-foot (61 m) section of the channel. It was shut down completely for several months in early 2007 for an emergency dredging project in the channel route to the island. As of 2009 Hammocks Beach State Park now offers a ferry that can hold up to 49 passengers.