A slushy wave off the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts

What a frozen day at the beach looks like when the waves turn to slush

Imagine heading down to your favorite beach, expecting to hear the crashing of waves, but instead hear silence and see slushie-like waves roll in off the Atlantic ocean. That’s just what happened to photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh on a very cold Nantucket morning.

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A slushy wave off the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts.

Jonathan Nimerfroh

You've arrived in Nantucket for your big international surfing adventure in New England. Okay, it's no Hawaii, but the waves are good.

Except, of course, when it's February, freezing and the waves have turn into slush.

"When I pulled up to the beach I could see the horizon just look strange," photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh, who lives on Nantucket, wrote me in an email. "When I got to the top of the dunes I saw that about 300 yards out from the shoreline the ocean was starting to freeze."

A slushy wave off the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts

Nimerfroh wasn't out on the Nantucket beaches for surfing last Friday — it wouldn't have been good anyway because of the winds coming in from the southwest, which he says would typically make for rough or choppy conditions. But he did shoot some amazing images of the 2- to 3-foot slush waves.

"What an experience to be absolutely freezing on the beach, watching these roll in, while I mind-surfed them," he says.

A slushy wave off the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts
A slushy wave off the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts
A slushy wave off the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts
A slushy wave off the coast of Nantucket, in Massachusetts