Cape Cod, Massachusetts - September 1st to 3rd, 2021
Life never goes according to plan. A willingness to change plans and make the most out of what life throws at you is how we have learned to cope. Despite storm Ida passing through and another death in the family, we still managed to enjoy the time we had on Cape Cod.
We were camping in Nickerson State Park. The heavy rain did not start on Wednesday until about midnight. Within the next couple of hours, our phones sounded the alarm indicating tornado warnings. Left Buddy (LB) was watching the maps. The first two tornado warnings did not cover our area. However, the third tornado warning did. We threw some clothes on and headed over to the campground restroom made of cinder block. Another family joined us. They were tent camping. One of their tents was soaking wet. When we left them about half an hour later, they were searching for hotels in the area on their phone. We hope they managed to find a way to get some sleep. We were thankful we were in a camper van during the storm instead of a tent.
Not long after we had crawled back into bed, our phones went off again, this time for a flash flood warning. Since we felt we were on relatively high ground, we ignored the warning and tried to go sleep. LB managed to get to sleep fairly quickly, but Right Buddy (RB) was awake past 4 am, listening to the rain hit the roof of our van. We both woke at about 8 am when a small branch landed on the roof of our van.
It was still raining Thursday morning. The wind was also pretty strong. We hung out in the van most of the day. The rain tapered off to a light drizzle by afternoon. The sun started peeping out around 3 pm and the winds calmed down. At 4 pm, we decided to go on a short bike ride to find ice cream.
The weather was beautiful in the evening. We rode our bikes on the paved park trail over to the Cape Cod Rail Trail (CCRT). The CCRT is a 25 mile long paved bike trail running from the South Dennis Trailhead to the Wellfleet Trailhead near the National Seashore, which is about one third of the length of the cape. We only rode the trail to Orleans, the next town to the north of Nickerson State Park.
Emack & Bolio’s Ice Cream was a quarter of a mile off the trail in town. We thought it looked like an interesting little ice cream shop, but previously unbeknownst to us, Emack & Bolio’s started in Boston in the 1970’s and now has locations all over the world. However, they do make their own ice cream. RB had grasshopper pie and chocolate addiction with LB having his traditional vanilla shake. We both enjoyed our treats.
The CCRT is a lovely trail. The part of the trail we were on was mostly shaded by trees. The evening sunlight was filtering through the trees onto the trail. We wish we would have had more time to ride more of this trail. RB would have loved to ride the whole thing, but that would have taken us most of one day.
Back at our camp site, we made dinner and turned in early for the night. The lack of sleep the night before left us pretty tired. We set our alarms for 6 am since we had tickets for a whale watching cruise the next morning.
Friday was the day of our cruise. We originally bought tickets online several months prior for the 9 am Hyannis Whale Watcher Cruise on Thursday. However, Hyannis called us several days earlier and informed us that they were canceling the 9 am cruise that day because of storm Ida which was forecasted to come through then. They offered the option of a refund or rescheduling the cruise. There was still room on the Friday morning cruise, so we rescheduled.
LB is not that comfortable on the water and is prone to motion sickness. He was a little nervous about the cruise. He had already purchased some medication and started medicating Thursday before he went to bed. Bonine is the product he used. They recommended taking one dose the day before and another one or two pills an hour before. So he took another pill when we arrived at the marina, about an hour before our sailing time. He also talked RB into taking one. She was less concerned about motion sickness. She has had minor motion sickness only once before, but she didn’t want to miss the whales. After we boarded the ship, they announced that the forecast called for three to four foot waves, which will be a little bumpy of a ride. Normally, the waves are only about two to three feet high. They recommended buying some Dramamine from the boat’s snack bar and taking it now, so it would have time to take effect. LB then took one more pill.
The Hyannis cruises depart from the Millway Marina in Barnstable, about half an hour from Nickerson State Park. There are other cruise companies that depart from Provincetown at the end of the cape, but that is almost an hour from Nickerson. The cruise is about four hours long. It goes out to the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary where the whales like to feed. The sanctuary is over 600 square miles of protected water between Cape Cod and Cape Ann.
It took about an hour to an hour and a half to reach the sanctuary and our first whale sighting. The whale dove about every 4 minutes. Our ship idled near the whale. It is against the law to move while the whale is diving. The waves seemed to rock the boat while we were sitting there, since we were no longer cutting through them. It took a couple of dives before the humpback whale showed us her tail, the fluke, so the naturalist on board to could identify her. It was Mobile. The humpback whales like to feed at Stellwagen Bank in the summer and head down to the Carribean, near Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic, to give birth to their calves during the winter months. After hanging around Mobile for about half an hour for about half a dozen dives, we headed north to where three more whales had been spotted.
By the time we reached the group of whales, there were only two. Our naturalist identified them as Nile and Scylla, both female humpback whales. The two females seemed to be pretty good pals this year, swimming side by side. They stayed up on the surface longer than Mobile did, but then they also stayed down longer, diving deeper than Mobile. After about three dives, giving us one last good show of their flukes as they dove, our ship starting heading back.
By this time, the waves and wind had calmed down and it was a much smoother ride back. LB had noticed that there were several people earlier who apparently didn’t take any motion sickness meds. There were some staff members running around with barf bags and wet towels to contain any messes. RB was too busy looking out at the water for the whales to notice. On the ride back, LB purchased an egg muffin sandwich from the snack bar. RB just ate the couple of granola bars she brought with her. She was surprised that LB did not buy a hot dog, as he loves hot dogs.
After our exciting cruise, we hopped in our van and drove up to Provincetown at the end of Cape Cod, or P-town as it seems to be affectionately called. Several people had told us not to miss it. The place was hopping when we arrived. It is a small harbor town. Commercial Street is a narrow, one-way street lined with small shops. It was amazing to us that they still allow vehicles down this narrow street as the throngs of pedestrians have almost taken over the street due to the narrow sidewalks.
Of course we went looking for an ice cream shop. There are several to choose from. We ended up at a place called Lewis Brothers Ice Cream. They make their own ice cream and also have a few “adult flavors” that contain alcohol. RB stuck with the kid flavors, having mint chip and chocolate. A vanilla shake satisfied LB again. Writing our flavor choices down helps us realize the flavor rut we seem to be in. We’ll have to start mixing it up more!
We walked out to the end of the MacMillan Pier and back. RB was feeling light-headed and weak. She’s not sure if it was due to being sleep-deprived, the lack of a good lunch, an after-affect of the motion sickness medication, or some combination of the three. At any rate, she felt like eating something would help. She walked into the Coffee Pot and ordered a gyro sandwich. LB decided to try their foot-long hot dogs. The gyro made RB feel better, but LB took a couple of bites of his hot dog and couldn’t eat any more. It wasn’t that the hot dog didn’t taste good, it was because LB’s stomach started to feel a little queasy.
After walking up and down Commercial Street, taking in the sights and the people, we decided to call it a day. Had we felt better, we might have stayed a little longer. We also might have tried driving the 6A back instead of route 6. It might have been more scenic, or at least different scenery than our drive out.
And so ended our visit to Massachusetts. Our plan was to go to Plymouth, Boston, and Salem following Cape Cod, but another funeral had us bee-lining back to Ohio the next day. We feel blessed that we were able to take the whale watching cruise before we left Cape Cod. Seeing whales in the wild for the first time was RB’s favorite experience of our Season Three travels. The excitement of the cruise was also a great way to focus our minds on something positive, which seemed to be just what we needed at the time.
Check out our related video: Cape Cod, Massachusetts
(RB)