ISOLATION AND DESOLATION
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SNOW IN THE MID ATLANTIC TODAY....TIME TO GO TO THE CAPE COD BEACHES.
I guess, given the topography of the East Coast, that the Cape Cod area of Mass. is one of the last large stretches of sand before you get to the "Real" rocky coasts of New England. And there is a lot of sand on the Cape.
The dunes just outside of Provincetown are huge. I mean North African type huge. It was a struggle for me to just walk to the top of one. Course I was old and frail when I tried it, but just sayin! I am sorry there is no scale in this photo, but the trees in the foreground are sizable. Plus, of course all this is forty miles out to sea so they create their own weather out there.
There is more sand in the Nauset Beach area around Orleans and some years ago there were still a few of the old beach shacks hidden in the dunes.
This photo is probably 40 years old and I am sure that the place is now gone, but Nauset is one of the really cool places to adventure and explore. This shack was the end of a long hike, probably carrying all the water and food the owners would need for however long their planned stay.
Salt marsh is what the Cape is all about if one is not on the ocean side. It's about a two and half mile walk out to Race Point and the old light house seen here in the distant. The walking is easy for the most part, and one can get a real feel for the land without any other humans in sight. I've said it before and will repeat it here, humans can mess up a free lunch when it comes to the solitude that nature provides. That's just for me though, and you may be different. If I want to hear a bunch of parrots jabbering around the next turn, I'll go to the South American jungles to photograph them. I don't need them on my local nature walks. OK, no more ranting!
There are so many places and ways that I have found some isolation and yes even desolation on the cape. Does the term "Loner" come to mind?
Stage Harbor Lighthouse is on a beach about two miles from the nearest road. Just my kinda place. Lighthouse, sand and crisp, green, cold water swirling around a point of sand. Had to be fish lurking there just waiting to be caught. Not, and I tried. One of the things I noticed about the Cape lighthouses, versus other areas of the East Coast is that they have removed the light rooms from most of the towers. I am not sure why that is so, except to say that weather and wind might be a factor. And the fact that there are no keepers to maintain the places. Just an interesting aside.
Speaking of lighthouse, there are some thirteen or so lights on the cape. Here, the Cape Cod light awash with spring flowers. This is one of the few towers in the country that was physically moved. Erosion of the cliff upon which it stood neccessitated the move a half mile inland. The other light on the cape that was moved was the Nauset tower. One on Block Island in Rhode Island was moved and of course the biggie was Cape Hatteras in North Carolina.
There are spots in Mass. where the beginning of the rocky shores of New England can be witnessed. It's just that the rocks are a little smaller the further south one travells. The Old Scituate lighthouse in, where else, Scituate is found in a rocky cove.
It must have been a morning like the one pictured above when the British were coming ashore during the Revolution. Legend has it that the two daughters of the keeper of the light took up fife and drum and started to play. The British, upon hearing the music, beat a hasty retreat as they feared an army hidden within the fog. The girls then became local heros.
If you click or double click on the first photograph, you will find a view of the photographs which offers a better rendition of each.
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