We haven’t been to the Cape since 2007, and we were feeling the desire to return. The Wife found a really nice lakeside cottage available to rent in our favorite town, Eastham. It was a little expensive, but we decided to splurge to have the chance to stay right on a lake (actually a kettle pond). We wanted to do some family bicycling (Daughter got a new bicycle this year), and I wanted to do a few solo paddling trips, to lighthouses which are difficult to access on land. So we took two cars, one with bicycles and one with the kayak and paddling gear.
Sunday night, after we unloaded and had dinner, we biked to Arnold’s for ice cream.
Monday
I was excited to paddle, so the first morning I woke up around sunrise and took the kayak to Stage Harbor, in Chatham (with a quick stop at Chatham Lighthouse to get a quick photo).
After the paddle it was back to the lake house and a quick lunch, after which we went to the Sand ‘n’ Surf in Wareham to pick up a friend of Daughter’s, who was going to stay with us a couple of nights. That evening we cooked up some veggie hot dogs and veggie burgers on the charcoal grill.
Tuesday
Tuesday morning we mostly stayed around the lakehouse. We booked a seal watching trip in the afternoon on the Rip Ryder. The boat was a little smaller than we expected (you have to walk out in the water to get onto it, which was also unexpected), but I soon saw the advantage of that: this boat is small but fast. We boated out to a small feature off Monomoy Island known as the Powder Hole. The captain was somewhat apologetic that another boat had scared off a lot of the seals, but we got to see quite a few male and female Grey seals. Also, we were within view of the Monomoy Point Lighthouse, which was nice. After the powder hole area, we explored the shallow sandbars off the southeast tip of Chatham, where we saw a colony of female seals, as well as some fascinating natural sandbars. The next day, I read in the newspaper that kayakers had seen a shark kill a seal just that past Sunday in this area.
That evening after a dinner of Taco Salad, we bicycled to Arnold’s Lobster and Clam Bar. Arnold’s is famous for their seafood, which generates a huge line. But we were not there for the seafood, we were there for Arnold’s equally good ice cream.
On the way back to the lake house, it was after dark. Despite my precautions — everyone had lights and helmets — we had a serious accident when my wife quickly braked and went over, hurting her ankle badly. It was very difficult to get her back into the lake house for the night.
Wednesday
We spent most of Wednesday in and out of hospitals. It turned out that the wife suffered a serious fracture in her right ankle area. While the wife was waiting to get a soft cast, I took Daughter’s friend back to Wareham. When I returned, she was just finishing up. We stopped at Barnes & Noble in Hyannis, where I saw my iStockphoto image of Cape Cod’s Nobska lighthouse on the cover of an American Map road atlas.
Thursday
Thursday, we decided to try to enjoy our Cape Cod stay, even though the wife would be stuck in the lake house with limited mobility. My main goal was to try taking Daughter on the Province Lands bicycle trail. Son and I had done the trail two years previously, and I wanted to see if Daughter could do it on her new Trek. I was also interested in stoppling at lighthouses, so I decided to take the kids northward. First we stopped at Cape Cod Light (Highland Light), then it was on to Province Lands. It was extremely hot, but Daughter was game, so we gave it a try. She made it about a mile and a half, and we decided to turn back. That left us with one extremely large hill to conquer, and Daughter handled it fine. She did three miles total that day, which made me proud. On the way back, we stopped at Nauset Light for another photo. I wanted to stop at Nauset Light Beach, just to show the kids and maybe have a walk around, but it was too crowded to park, even at 4:30 pm.
Friday
Friday we sadly packed it up and left the Cape. Since we had brought two cars, this meant that I had to take a bus back to Eastham that night. By 11:30 PM, all four of us and two cars were back home again.
See my gallery of images from our Cape Cod trip.
