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#

CHAPPAQUIDDICK BRIDGE, WASQUE POINT, MY TOI GARDEN

Saturday, we crossed from Edgartown by ferry to Chappaquiddick Island. Its a small place, mostly dirt roads, and hidden homes. Its easy to see how someone famous could live here and never fear invading tourists. Its necessary to get there by boat or expensive ferry, and bring everything in. Chappy Store, has little to offer but snacks and ice cream and a sense of humor.

 Chappy Store is surrounded by broken down cars that people didn't want to pay to haul away. Now, there are laws preventing that. You bring it in, you take it out.

The dirt roads and low traffic make it a great place to bike ride. Our first stop was Wasque Pt. Its an  ecological area under protection for its unique plants and insects that survive in the salt marshes of glacially deposited sands. Fire prevents pitch pine from taking over, something learned from the local indian populations that inhabited the island for thousands of years.

Beaches are very private. You have to park and walk through the low growing salt loving plants to get to them at Wasque Pt.

The tar pines invade where the area is unprotected by controlled burning.

Our next stop was the Chappaquiddick Dike Bridge where Ted Kennedy drove off the side. It is closed to all who don't have "sand" vehicles. We hoped to visit all five lighthouses on Marthas Vineyard. The Cape Poge Lighthouse sits on the point of Chappaquiddick and we weren't able to cross over. The bridge has been rebuilt after that incident and now has heavy duty guard rails. Marthas Vineyard is part of Duke County, which is a dry county. However, drinking isn't against the law. You can bring it in, you just can't buy it here. Being dry may be one of the reasons the island is so relatively crime free.

On the Dike Rd. is My Toi, a Japanese strolling garden. It has public restrooms as well. The garden was built by Hugh Jones and while planting it he referred to it as "my toy." Thus, the metaphoric name. It has ponds, bridges, a dripping bamboo water fall, some rhododendrons in bloom.

The ponds have koi, snapping turtles and painted turtles, plus goldfish. We didn't see any. Its a restful place. Outside of the garden is a place to put air in your tires, heavily used. We talked to a fellow traveler with Washington State license plates filling his tires, (below). He has a place on the island. People let air out of their tires to cross over the bridge, qualifying their vehicle as a "sand" vehicle. Then they refill their tires at this spot.

Across the road from My Toi is a walking trail to visit the the Poucha Pond with vistas of the salt marsh and beaches. If you go, bring your walking shoes.

Sometimes the ferry has to fight the currents to make the crossing. We watched as  two ferries were working to miss each other in the strong wind and current.