"One complication facing any expedition to Oyster Island, a speck of land about half a mile southwest of the Statue of Liberty, is that most of the time the island is not there. For this reason, perhaps, it is rarely marked on maps—another complication. One of the last charts to note Oyster Island by name was issued by the U.S. Coast Survey, in 1844, and since then it has been portrayed mostly as an underwater hazard—marked on maritime apps, for instance, as “foul area,” a mere navigational risk. It is a remnant of the oyster beds that surrounded Liberty and Ellis Islands through the late nineteen-twenties, by which time they’d been contaminated by sewage, industrial toxins, and dredging. Oyster Island is primarily a sunken island, but it returns occasionally when the moon is both full and especially close, as it was a few weeks ago, when an unusually low tide offered a two-hour window during which a small group landed there to explore."Sounds like a fun, if damp, place for a quick picnic lunch.
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