My family purchased a 100-by-100-foot lot in Ocean Ridge in 1956, and 10 years later built our house at 16 Tropical Drive. Our extended family visited our home many, many times in 60 years. As time passed, and families grew and changed, I finally made this my year-round home for over 20 years.
One of the greatest joys all my family relished was being able to walk the short distance to the dune, cross over and then smell, hear and see that great Atlantic Ocean. We all feel it is a very cherished freedom.
In recent years, we realized that we have new neighbors on either side of us with very differing opinions from ours about accessing the beach. We who live on Tropical Drive are not trying to camp out on anyone’s private land. We all just want to cross the dune, not see all those unwelcoming signs saying No Trespassing, Private Beach etc., etc., and walk out to the sand. We only want to ingress and egress as we have been doing for the past 70-plus years that I have witnessed.
Also, from what I have seen through many years at the beach, those signposts could very well interfere with all the sea turtles who might be wanting to lay their eggs exactly there!
— Patricia Kropp
Ocean Ridge
Replies
The "private beach" ends at the high water mark. Not to mention the fact that Tropic Drive, Oceanview and Douglas all have an easement to the beach. If memory serves me the annual high water mark is where the thick vegatation ends. There are brass discs in the sand that designates the line, but they get covered by sand. Needless to say, the area after the bushes is public land.