Ice Everywhere 

Over the weekend of January 24, Nantucket experienced freezing temperatures and a foot of snow. This was the largest winter storm to hit the island since Winter Storm Juno let loose on the island back in January of 2015. The biggest difference between the two storms is that this storm had freezing temperatures with no sign of letting up. At the time of writing, it has been over two weeks since the storm, and the temperatures have not risen, and forecasts don't show them rising soon. This has had many effects on island living, as none of the snow has melted or will melt. The bigger effect of this has been the ice. Ice has spread throughout the island, and in the early days of the storm, caused accidents on the roads. Weeks later, there is still ice all over the sidewalks. Ice has also spread across the ponds and lakes, and some residents have even gone out and enjoyed ice sailing on the frozen lake! The ice has even gone as far as spreading into the oceans around the island, most noticeably in the harbor. The ice reached the harbor the weekend of January 31. This is the most ice and winter weather on the island in my memory, and potentially my whole life. 

These conditions caused a lot of problems with the boat schedules on the days surrounding that weekend, affecting many aspects of island life. The Hy-Line fast ferries started canceling trips on Friday, January 30, in preparation for the worsening ice. However, the Steamship Authority’s slow boats were able to get through the ice that weekend, but ran into more problems in the following week. The difference between the two ferries is that Hy-Line boats have hulls that are primarily made of aluminum, making them faster but much weaker, especially in the cold. Steamships, on the other hand, have hulls made primarily of steel. This makes them much stronger in all temperatures compared to the aluminum hulls. As a result, the slow boats were able to get through for the weekend, providing the island with essential back-and-forth service. 

The disruptions had a huge impact on the school's sports program, as that weekend was the league championship meets for the Whalers swim and indoor track teams. While smaller games in other sports were able to get rescheduled, the championship meets for track and swim could not be. This caused the runners and swimmers to wake up at around 5 a.m. to go over on the 6 a.m. slow boat and return on the 8:30 p.m. slow boat, giving them an 18+ hour day with meets in between. As the weekend came and went, the ice only got worse. The U.S. Coast Guard Station at Brant Point ended up needing to call in one of the Coast Guard's 63-year-old icebreaker vessels, Shackle, to help clear the ice. Shackle arrived on the island early in the week of February 2 and stayed on Nantucket throughout the week, clearing ice for the boats to run. All boats have been restored with the new ice breaker clearing the way for travel back and forth. The vessel had been all over the East Coast before coming to the island, clearing ice, and it was scheduled to depart the weekend of February 6 to continue its route clearing up ice across the northeast. The cold weather does not look like it will be letting up anytime soon, so that ice might be sticking around for a while.