The Ponies of Assateague Island

A couple days ago, we got to see the wild ponies at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia. But today we are hoping to see them in another park in another state at Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland. While both these federally-run areas are actually on the same 37-mile-long barrier island, they are miles apart. While we are heading to the ocean side of Assateague island, we can't help but admire the cloud reflection on the bay-side water of the island.

We drove over the Verrazano Bridge to get to the island, and right past the entrance to Assateague state park. We headed to the National Seashore, and a line was already forming at the entry gate. We get in with our annual national park pass, so it's another free day of fun for us.

We drove to the furthest point where the paved road turns to sand, and got a good parking place near the South Ocean Beach. We were hoping to see a wild pony some time today, and we hit the jackpot! Just as we walked over the dune to the beach, we found this group greeting us to the Atlantic Ocean.

It was such fun to snap the quintessential Assateague Island picture of the ponies with the waves of the Atlantic Ocean in the background.

Visitors are warned to keep their distance, and petting or feeding a horse can lead to a park fine. But the horses obviously hadn't read the rule book, because they didn't keep the suggested 40 feet away. It was amazing to see how close the horses got to people on the beach.

Denisa was having a ball taking pictures of the ponies in this unusual setting!

Her favorite, of course, was the mare and her colt on the beach.

We wore our swim suits today. We are usually content to walk in the sand looking for shells. But it is high tide and all the shells are covered with water now.

Hide tide meant that the waves were crashing high up on the shore. 

After getting used to the cool temperature of the ocean water, it was great fun standing in the water and waiting for the waves to slam into us.

We took way too many pictures of crashing waves, so we have to include a few more.

The waves were fun on the beach, but they were also forming far enough out for surfers to catch them. We watched as several surfers braved the cool water in their wet suits to surf the waves.

With a special permit, people are allowed to drive further up the coast in their vehicles. They were sold out of these special permits, so we could only walk out to see this section of the "over sand vehicle" beach.

We had a great time in the water, but we decided it was time to explore the rest of this park. The horses had left the beach, and we headed back to the pickup. As we were walking toward the parking lot, we found that the horses were heading back to the beach.

They knew that it was easier to walk on the board walk instead of the sand. So Mark had to make way for them to pass. 

While visitors aren't supposed to approach the horses, we guess there isn't any rule that prohibits the horses from approaching visitors. No zoom needed for this picture, as this pony crowded Denisa off the board walk and walked within a few feet of her.

We were glad to see that this federal beach has provided outdoor showers. We had heard that the ponies have learned how to turn the water faucets on to get a drink.

 It was nice to rinse off the sand and salt water before we headed back to the pickup.

Another visitor was glad to see our parking space opening up. When we left, we saw that the parked cars had spilled out onto the side of the road and stretched for about a half-mile. The South Beach was noticeably more crowded this afternoon. 

While the horses at Chincoteague were fenced into a specific area of the wildlife refuge, there are no fences here at Assateague. You can find wild ponies anywhere! While we can appreciate the efforts of the Chincoteague fire department to manage the wild ponies in the Virginia section, we have to say that we much prefer seeing the ponies in the wild here at Assateague in the Maryland section. Here the ponies are under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, who obviously have a different wildlife management philosophy.

We drove down most of the spur roads, many that took us to the bay side of the island. We found some interesting places down Bayside Drive.

Very often we would find wild ponies, eating on the abundant sea grass in the bay.

We had noticed that many of the horses had round swollen bellies. Could all these horses be ready to drop a foal? Then we read at the visitor center that the main diet of these horses is salty marsh grass, and they drink a lot of water. The combination makes them look bloated.

At this stop on the end of Bayside Road, we found that people were having some success catching crabs. This couple showed us the blue crab that they had just caught, and was on ice for tonight.

The sign close to the boardwalk had a notch in the bottom, that is used to see if your just-caught crab was large enough to take home.

Anything smaller than that five inch notch has to be returned to the water off Assateague island.

Just in case it would seem that we are only taking pictures of ponies and crabs, we will also photograph a swallow that posed beside the walkway.

We had a great day at Assateague Island National Seashore! Our pony encounters were better than expected, and the waves were great fun. We feel like we have wandered into another of God's wonders today!