New Addition to Long Pond

Join us in welcoming “Cupcake” to our pond! The solar-powered buoy was deployed today in the west end of the pond to monitor our waters. Its purpose is to detect, forecast, and help understand the root causes and mitigation of harmful cyanobacteria blooms.

We are excited to be part of this pilot program run by Subtidal, a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution spin-out, supported by NOAA and the National Science Foundation.

Subtidal Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer Matt Long put the buoy in the water today, and activated it to begin collecting and transmitting data. We will soon have access to an online dashboard with real-time water condition data, which will enable us to respond more quickly to changes in our cyanobacteria levels.

We are one of only five areas on Cape Cod to take part in the program so far. The others include Long Pond in Marston Mills and Waquoit Bay.

The research buoy, which was designed for marine systems, is rugged and designed to withstand harsh weather and water conditions. Long says feel free to take a look at “Cupcake” next time you’re out on the pond, but warns not to touch it or try to tie up to it.

In case you’re wondering, “Cupcake” received its name from the six-year-old daughter of the other Subtidal Co-Founder Casey Wilson. You can find out more about Subtidal and the pilot program on its website.

Rowing to Recovery (R2R): A Grateful Glide into Our Fifth Year

R2R began five years ago when one member, facing a terminal diagnosis, set out to fulfill a dream: to scull. That first glide across the water—full of grace and determination—sparked a movement now shared by others navigating serious health challenges.

Our members face advanced cancer, Parkinson’s, brain injuries, vision loss, or the ongoing demands of caregiving. Rowing builds strength, balance, and connection—engaging 86% of our body’s muscles in a joint-friendly, soul-lifting sport.

Each practice is a lesson in resilience, teamwork, and the healing power of nature. Though many of us row single sculls, we move forward together—physically and emotionally.

Thanks to the incredible generosity of our Long Pond neighbors—especially Paula Cocoris, who graciously allows us to launch from her beach—Rowing to Recovery continues to thrive. Your support is a gift to a grateful group of rowers. Thank you, Paula!

A special thank-you also goes to Brett Fournier—lifelong rower, Barnstable High School alum, coach, and champion of Cape Cod rowing. Brett provides us with top-notch equipment at a generously discounted rate. Without his steady support, R2R would not exist. Thank you, Brett!

Another essential force behind our success is Alyse Demary, our inspiring Head Coach. A former BHS teammate of Brett’s, Alyse is a successful collegiate and lifelong rower—and a Head of the Charles champion. She brings unmatched energy to our group, guiding beginners with patience, coaching experienced rowers with skill, and offering unwavering encouragement every step of the way. R2R is stronger because of her.

We typically row two to three mornings a week for about an hour, launching at 7:30 or 8:00 am. Following a counterclockwise loop around Long Pond, we share the water respectfully with fellow paddlers and anglers.

We rely on donations to supplement our modest dues and ensure access for all, especially those facing financial or medical hardship. R2R is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit under Real Eyes Truth, Inc. All contributions are tax-deductible and deeply appreciated.  Donation link at https://www.realeyestruth.org/donate  indicate donation is for “Haven/R2R”

To support R2R, learn more, or join us on the water, please contact Sheila Mulcahy, Founder and Facilitator, at
📧 she.mulcahy@gmail.com

Our Herring Run - 2024 Report

Long Pond hosts a robust river herring spawning event each spring. In early April, thousands of ocean-dwelling herring swim up the “Centerville River,” an artificial stream that enters Long Pond between Blantyre Avenue and Holly Lane. You can see the white sandbags that Town of Barnstable herring wardens use to regulate flow into the run, to keep adequate but not too much water for the herring passage. On the north shore, there is a white bridge over the run where it passes on up to Lake Wequaquet.

The small energetic fish struggle upstream and against a host of predators to reach their spawning grounds here, staying four to six weeks before returning to their ocean home. The fry may remain in Long Pond until autumn, and schools can sometimes be seen in the shallow water. There can be millions, as each female herring releases as many as 100,000 eggs. Only 1% or fewer survive to return to spawn here at age three or older. If they are fortunate, the adult fish can spawn more than once, unlike salmon.

A handful of dedicated volunteers count the herring as they swim by. We follow the protocol given by the MA Department of Marine Fisheries, designed to extrapolate from limited data to an actual count. In 2021, we counted 10,000 in our limited counts, and DMF calculated an actual count of 200,000. Last year we also counted 10,000. This year the count was down to 5,000 – a common finding in most of Massachusetts’ 100 herring runs. DMF folks think that ocean fishing trawlers may be inadvertently capturing them and discarding them as ‘bycatch.’ Or perhaps their food supply is down this year.

No one knows what portion of our herring spawn here and what portion goes on up to Lake Wequaquet. Many do go on up. The alewife herring, who arrive first, spawn quietly in the Pond, but the blueback herring, who arrive a week later than the alewife, spawn in the moving water of the run. It is glorious to watch their enthusiasm and joy as they do this.

Most of our herring population arrives in the hours before or at dawn. Few pass in daylight hours, although that is when DMF tells us to count. We need volunteers to meet this mandate. There are few places to count on public property. Currently we use 125 Blantyre Avenue, along the run, for counting. If you would like to help, or to come by at dawn and see some herring next spring, please contact Steve Waller at stevegwaller@gmail.com.

What Weeds to Watch?

Wondering what plants around Long Pond are invasive and what you can do to help the health of our pond? If so, please attend the upcoming Weed Watcher Workshop offered by the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) Lakes and Pond Program to learn how to best to monitor Long Pond for harmful invasive plants. During this hands-on workshop focused on plant identification, you will learn how you can help prevent the spread of invasive weeds.


DCR’s Lakes and Ponds Program staff will bring live plant specimens to the training for a hands-on identification workshop. Those who register for the event will receive more information about how to bring potential nuisance plants from your ponds to identify at the workshop.


What are the Harmful Effects of Invasive Aquatic Plants? When invasive plants become established in a lake or pond, they are almost impossible to remove and very expensive to control. Invasive plants spread rapidly and form dense mats that can make boating, fishing, and swimming impossible. As the recreational and aesthetic value of the pond declines, property values around it also decrease. Invasive species also alter pond habitat and disrupt the ways aquatic ecosystems normally function. If a pioneer infestation of invasive plants is identified early, there is a greater chance that the plant can be eradicated before it becomes established in the pond.


By monitoring Long Pond, you are taking an active role in ensuring its protection for the future!



June 24th at 1:00pm at Centerville Public Library


You can register for the workshop here.

The Original Herring Run

Catching river herring was a common activity on Cape Cod from Wampanoag times. Although Centerville hosted few European immigrants before the early 1800s, local entrepreneurs hoped to establish a herring-catching business, so they excavated a connection between the Craigville salt marsh and Long Pond sometime around 1740. The excavators’ identity and exact dates are lost to history. They used a gully that runs along the east side of today’s St Francis Xavier Cemetery up to Pine Street at its intersection with Herring Run Drive. The run was not successful, reputedly because the soil was too sandy and the high, steep banks often caved into the run, blocking water flow and herring passage. Whether it extended up to Lake Wequaquet is unknown.

    Centerville before 1800 was called “Chequaquet” or “South Side” and very rural (first European grave was 1743), so likely no permit for the original run was given by the Barnstable government. The financial failure of the run may also account for the absence of historical and map documentation.

      The deep gully remains today and is visible from the cemetery and from Maureen Road, an extension of Katherine Road off Pine Street. Standing near the aluminum guard rail on Pine Street, one can see the gully has been filled to the south for a short distance. Beyond the filled area, the gully is deep and overgrown. There may have been a bridge on Pine Street when the herring run was operating, so that water could flow out of Long Pond toward the Craigville salt marsh. A large amount of filled earth was later installed to cover the original herring run. A lot of earth can be moved in 300 years. A neighbor who is more than 100 years old and learned to swim in Long Pond has no memory of the original run.

   Looking north down Herring Run Drive toward Long Pond, we see that the elevation of Pine Street is 10 or more vertical feet above the Pond level. That would not allow water to flow out of Long Pond into the run. There is a gully along the west side of Herring Run Drive which may be the location of the old run. Old maps at Sturgis Library from 1795, 1835, and 1856 do not show a herring run out of Wequaquet or Long Pond.

   After the Civil War, a group of unemployed veterans dug a new herring run, using the route we see today. This run goes up to Long Pond then to Lake Wequaquet, and the excavating team was paid $100. An 1893 USGS map shows a herring run leaving Wequaquet, but it diverts east along today’s Strawberry Hill Road, bypassing Long Pond completely. That seems like nonsense, but it is at least downhill.

    The run today hosts thousands of herring in their annual spawning. They first swim up to Long Pond in early April. Most arrive at Long Pond in the hours around dawn, and we see few in daylight hours. This year (2024) we counted over 5,000 migrating into Long Pond, and saw an even larger number as they left for the ocean in mid-May. In both 2021 and 2023, our visual count was 10,000. From that data, the state Department of Marine Fisheries estimated our river herring migrant population in Long Pond and Lake Wequaquet to be over 200,000.

   There are few public places to observe the herring migration today. There is a weedy viewing area on the south side of Pine Street in the Barnstable Land Trust property, and south of busy Phinney’s Lane where the run passes under the road. Parking is challenging at both places.




Life on Long Pond - A New Book!

Long Pond resident Steve Waller has written a book about life on our lovely kettle pond. A Moving Meditation focuses on the joy of canoeing and observing wildlife, including Long Pond’s annual river herring migration. It offers an intimate look at the pond’s intriguing natural and human history and its abundant animal life. See below for a 20% discount code if you purchase the book through University of Massachusetts Press.

Amy Beach - Long Pond Composer

Amy Beach (1867-1944) was an American pianist and symphony composer who spent most of her summers on Long Pond. As a pianist, she was a child prodigy, playing with the Boston Symphony as a teenager. In 1896, the BSO played one of her original compositions, a first for an American female composer.  She married a wealthy Boston surgeon, who was a music fan and supported her work. After he died in 1911, she toured to acclaim in Europe for three years, often playing her own compositions. In the winters, she lived in Boston, San Francisco, and New York City.

She bought five “woodland” acres along the north shore of Long Pond in Centerville in 1894. She said she and her husband could have been happy in a tent, but her piano would not. So “...we built a cottage around the piano.”  She often composed in the cabin they built near the water.

The property, which Beach called “The Pines”, was not surveyed until 1930, and the description in the town records before that time provides little detail. However, according to the 1940 town records, Beach owned frontage on the south side of Rt 28 for 400 feet west from the Phinney’s Lane intersection. Her property extended to the pond, so it included what today is the east half of the Sachem Drive circle and the lots at 1413 and 1421 Falmouth Rd.

She later enlarged her holdings to 11 acres, and loyally returned to Long Pond each summer. After she died in 1944, her heir subdivided the property into at least six parcels. Her cottage was demolished to make way for new homes, but her love of Long Pond lives on in our hearts.

How Our Pond Began

About 12,000 years ago, the northern third of the Earth was covered with a thick sheet of ice. Over the previous thousands of years, the icepack received more snow each winter than melted each summer, so it grew larger and heavier. The weight of the added snow and ice pushed the leading edge of the ice southward across Cape Cod Bay, dredging up rocks and crushing them against each other. Cape Cod was a long pile of rocks and sand at the front edge of this huge glacial tongue of ice. The glacier stood nearly a mile tall along the north shore of today’s Cape Cod. Sandy Neck and the Outer Cape beyond today’s Brewster did not yet exist. Previous ice ages had dredged up today’s Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard.

The earth was warming, and the ice had stopped advancing toward the south. Huge waterfalls splashed off the wall of ice, and occasionally massive blocks of ice toppled off. A group of huge blocks crashed off, breaking into three pieces and creating the three lobes of Long Pond. As the ice melted and receded, a larger chunk fell and created Lake Wequaquet. The ice chunks were surrounded by sand and stones washed out of the glacier. As the fallen ice melted, the pond water rose to its present level. Many such ‘kettle ponds’ were formed from the grand ice falls, like Walden Pond in Concord. This process happened almost a thousand times on Cape Cod.

With no connection to the Bay or Nantucket Sound, Long Pond had no fish. Perhaps native Americans released some and started its fish population. In 1867, a group of unemployed Civil War veterans were hired by the town to dig a ‘herring run’ from Nantucket Sound up to Long Pond and on to Lake Wequaquet. They excavated by hand, using horses to pull the loads of dirt and rock from their project. The ditch they dug is our herring run, now called the Centerville River.

Today we benefit from this rich history, with herring swimming up our run to spawn each April and May, then leaving for their ocean home soon afterwards. Their minnows remain in our pond until late autumn, providing food for the bass and sunfish, and eventually coming back to spawn at the age of three or older. Scientists estimate that only one in a thousand survives to spawn.

Our heritage is threatened by the annual cyanobacteria bloom, the invasive weed Hydrilla, and other byproducts of human settlement around Long Pond. Our pond is a finite resource, and these threats could ruin it for all – humans, herring, osprey, turtles, bass, and others. Our septic systems, lawn fertilizer, and storm runoff from driveways and streets pollute it. The Association for the Preservation of Long Pond seeks to preserve the pond in its original state, for enjoyment today and for generations to come. By taking action together, we can save the pond from ourselves.

Pondapalooza 2023

A sunny Saturday made for a perfect backdrop for Pondapalooza 2023. It was great to see dozens of folks out on Long Pond enjoying the day and our beautiful pond. There were feisty pirates, talented performers, and Love Boat crew members spotted amongst the craft on the pond. There was also an opportunity to learn about the Herring Run and Rowing to Recovery. We’re already looking forward to next year!

Rowing on Long Pond

Watercraft on Long Pond is diverse. Many folks in the adult age group prefer the stable pontoon boats, with comfortable seats and little danger of capsize. Other boaters find kayaks and stand-up paddle boards more suitable, but when the wind and waves come up, they may get wet. Fishermen prefer flat-bottomed boats with a small motor or kayaks to reach their quarry. There are a few who make circuits around the pond in canoes. But it has been years since we saw rowing shells on Long Pond.

Residents Tony and Jean Antin had a double scull crew shell several years ago. Tony was coxswain for Rutgers during his college days after WWII, so he knew the sport well. Tony has now passed away and Jean lives near family in New Hampshire.  

This summer a homeowner on Blantyre Avenue is hosting a group of rowers who launch their boats from her waterfront home. Most of the rowers are women, several of whom are cancer survivors. The rowing program is called “Rowing to Recovery.” One of the intrepid rowers is blind, so she goes out in a double with a sighted teammate. The other rowers are all in single-scull boats.

Long Pond is nearly 1000 meters in length, which is the distance of some rowing races. The practice usually involves rowing laps around the Pond, rather than contests in a straight line.

If you see the rowers, please give them a friendly wave and keep your wake to a minimum.