EASTHAM AND WELLFLEET PONDS

My daughter visits Cape Cod regularly and told me about the Kettle Ponds of Wellfleet. Looking through brochures we found Salt Pond Visitors Center at Eastham, which is near Wellfleet. Starting there was a good idea. The visitors center has an excellent museum and two 12 minute films. One deals with the geological formation of the island, the kettle ponds and salt ponds.  The other shows actual 1900's footage aboard a whaler. The museum has nicely done artifacts of whaling days from Cape Cod. Well worth a visit.

  This salt pond outside the visitors center was once a kettle pond of fresh glacial water. The sea broke through and turned it into a salt pond. It is now stocked with lobster eggs and local people can pay to harvest here. A Lobster female can emit as many as a million eggs. Much of the eastern arm of the cape is part of the Cape Cod National Sea Shore. As such, many places are public, beaches, fresh and salt water ponds, marked trails for bikers and walkers, bird watching and, of course, preservation. Its difficult to do as we like to do and visit a place briefly, take pictures, talk to people and get a feeling for the place since parking regulations here are strictly enforced and one needs to pay $15 to park just about anywhere in the National Park. In fact, the map given us at the center tells of each beach controlled by the city they are within. All have that same permit parking. Some parking areas are unmanned.  One person stays in the Bronco while the other takes pictures. We must make it necessarily brief. On manned beaches, we've asked to park briefly to take pictures and leave.
Also, all roads around private property near beaches have strictly enforced No Parking regulations on both sides of the road all over the cape. It does solve a host of problems for residents.

  On our way to Gull Pond, we stopped at the Marconi Bluff, (parking here was free), to visit the spot where once stood the first wireless telegraph transmitter. A model of the station and wreckage of the old station are on this spot.

The first transatlantic telegram was sent from this station from President Roosevelt to King Edward the VII of England on January 19, 1903.
Passing through Wellfleet, we found a real, working drive-in theatre. There are just over 500 of them left in the U.S.

Gull Pond is a beauty. Fresh, warm water. Shallow for a long way out. Kids about 3 1/2 feet tall can still walk out to the raft here. These freshwater ponds are the Cape's source of drinking water. They are not spring fed. My expectation was of small ponds, in a string, like large natural hot tubs vanished when I saw this beautiful sight. I only went in up to my knees. (Parking, doncha know.) 

Here people swim and can rent a kayak.

We left and drove the Ocean Rd. and sought other ponds at Eastham, smaller ones like this Depot Pond.

The beach isn't very wide but you can pull up your car and a chair and swim, fish and enjoy-no charge for parking.  Herring Pond is the same, even smaller with tighter access. Quiet.
This pay-to-park beach is right in the arm of Cape Cod Bay. Not quite the romantic setting one thinks about reminiscent of the song. Maybe by moonlight when the tide is in. It looked like tidal lowlands for a mile out. Every type of clam, snail, tube worm and other critters are found here in these extended tidal flats. Many people seemed to be clamming as we watched.

We stumbled across an old cemetery and carefully parked in the driveway of an empty house and visited it.

Here are old slate stones, interesting tales they tell of epidemics, child birth and heartbreak. This cemetery and one called Cove Burying Grounds are on the Historic Register.Cataloged and every inscription here can be found on-line at this link: www.capecodgravestones.com
Thanks to the park, much of the salt marsh here is preserved.

Since it was Fathers Day, we decided to stop at Rock Harbor and pick up a couple lobsters.The first time I ever cooked one. Delicious. And, to think the early pilgrims and the Indians didn't eat lobster. They used them for bait. In fact, during the 1800's they almost fished them to extinction in the area. A good fisherman could gather 25,000 in a load that sold in New York for a penny a piece.

All the tools I gathered were mostly unnecessary.
For more pictures click the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/1579penn/62010KettlePondsOfWellfleet#

HOT DAY ON CAPE COD

The weather was a real brow roaster, so we decided to stay along the shoreline, just look around and stay cool. Our first stop was Chatham lighthouse, Beach and Harbor. It was still early and the plien air painters were out in numbers, kind of fun to watch them.

This lighthouse is the sixth one on this point. The first and second ones were smashed in storms. The third and fourth ones were made of brick and the sand eroded around them until they were allowed to fall into the ocean. The fifth was a stationary light and replaced by this "cookie cutter" steel affair. It sits far enough back on the point to be safe. The double white light flashes every two seconds.

 The beach here stretched for miles in both directions. Shark and rip tide warnings kept the bathers to a minimum. A monument to several major disasters that took the lives of sailors stands here as does the propeller of the Coast Guard Lifeboat Chatham 36500 that rescued 32 men in 60 foot waves during a ferocious nor'easter in 1952. The tanker Pendleton broke in half. The little rescue boat was too small to make it. No one expected them to rescue anyone, or make it back if they did. All were wrong about the 36 foot lifeboat and its courageous crew, who did it without a compass and most of their rescue gear washed overboard. The crew received the gold medal for valor and the little boat is on the Historic Register. (Picture below.)

  The Chatham Harbor, further up the road, colorful and beautiful, also had its share of plien air painters.

If I painted I'd choose the cluster of boats below.

We moved on and explored a number of little inlets. We just followed roads like Old Wharf Rd, Cow Pasture Lane, Landing Road. Actually it was hard to find a right turn that didn't eventually lead to water.It was fun and we just poked around. Stopped at a couple of Thrift Stores and Antique places. Visited a cultural center and viewed some fantastic pastels, a juried show of real quality. Two that I liked: Sand Dune Light by Susan Hollis.

The following painting tickled me because I used to own one of those penguin ice buckets. Artist Karen Cotler.

We moved on to Nauset Beach where you pay a toll to swim. The sunbathers were out in numbers, few in the water, though.

The walkway up protects the dunes.

We tripped on to Rock Harbor.

Rock Harbor was a fascinating place. Its home to mostly deep sea fishing boats, with lanes that keep swimmers separate from boats, and incoming and out going boats apart. The lanes are planted trees with radar plates on them to assist navigation in the fog.

We talked to a guy who had a beautiful 1930 refurbished Ford. A friendly guy, he offered to take our picture in it, but I was slathered with sun screen and declined. He explained what bad shape it was in before he had it done. He looked at the Bronco when Jim offered to trade, and he said, "Maybe..."  for the right price was implied.  The Bronco is a 1986.

Our parting shot was this buoy covered building.

Then we went to eat at Cookes in Orleans, voted by islanders as the best fried clams and lobster roll on Cape Cod. We ended up eating the seafood platter with fried clams, shrimp, scallops and cod. Delicious? You bet! This fried food is gonna kill me, though.