Cape Cod Water

By Bob Surrette  (photo by Ken VanTassell)

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One of the best things about the Cape is the water, especially the salt water. People come here to enjoy our access to the Bay, the Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, all filled with salt water from top to bottom. While there are some fresh water ponds here and there and almost everywhere, a lot of our in-land puddles are tidal, filled and emptied by tidal estuaries that start and end at the ocean's edge.

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Most of my clan that visited the Cape on vacation over the last seven decades just scratched the surface of our waters. They came, they beached for a week, then went home.  The rule of thumb for my siblings was to not venture further out off the beach and into the sea than we could stand with our heads above water. This was a great formula as it aged well without Mom having to develop an age specific rule of thumb as we grew, both in numbers and in statute.

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I learned to swim in a pool at the Y and practiced in the freshwater lake near where I grew up in the outer suburbs of a major mid-Massachusetts municipality.  I preferred to swim in fresh water back then, especially when I accidentally took a mouthful. Fresh water frolicking also had the lucky strike extra of allowing us to skip our baths that night. But in my later years I learned to greatly enjoy the extra buoyancy that salt water provides me. Sadly, it is only temporary and gravity had its way with me when I eventually had to waddle back on shore.

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Like my clan back then, many visitors to the Cape today only to get enjoy the views of our littoral waters from the shore line as I did for fifty years or so. I never stepped on a boat until my much younger brother convinced me to go out on his sloop one blustery day.  I got to practice my salt water swimming that day when the wind conspired with a rogue wave to topple us. My brother laughed it off; I haven't been on a small boat since.

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 There are many people who are lucky enough to be Cape Cod boat people, they own them or ride on boats of others.  They get to see the Cape from the water to the shore, and a very pretty picture it can be, as you can see from this photo. This picture was taken from the ferry on the way back from Nantucket. Postcard perfect, no?

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