I just spent the most beautiful weekend on Cape Cod! It was my first time there, so I wasn’t sure what to expect other than hoping for some great weather for some much needed beach time.
We left around 6 pm and got to our Inn at about 9 pm. We stayed at the Blue Dolphin Inn in Eastham, which is pretty far up the cape. I knew I wanted to be close to the best beaches and close to Provincetown which is at the very tip of the cape, so the Blue Dolphin Inn ended up being the cheapest and perfectly located accommodation.
We were exhausted from a full days of work and driving, so we pretty much fell asleep as soon as we checked in.
The next morning, we got up in search of some breakfast. After doing a quick search on Yelp, I found a cute brunch spot called Hole In One that served hand rolled donuts and yummy eggs benedict. Paxton got the Green Monster, the special of the day, which was an eggs benedict with fried green tomato, avocado, spinach, and pesto hollandaise sauce. It was delish!
We then set off to have a beach day. I wanted to go to Nauset Beach and after going down some winding roads, we finally found it, only to be told that the parking lots were full and that we weren’t able to go there. The parking attendant literally told us to turn around and leave. The beaches are down winding, residential roads, so there aren’t really any off roads you can turn down to park in, so we set off for another beach about 10 minutes away, called Nauset Lighthouse Beach. Once we arrived, we found out that parking lot was also full, but luckily it was around lunch time so people were slowly trickling out to grab a bite to eat. After only about 10 minutes of waiting, we were able to wait our turn and snag a spot.
Now, I had been told that there are a lot of great white sharks in Cape Cod and I was dying to see one. I even downloaded an app called Sharktivity that told you of the recent shark sightings. There hadn’t been any in the past week, but I was hopeful to see a fin. I totally thought I was going to go swimming, because sharks didn’t scare this merm.
However, once we got to the beach, we saw numerous warning signs warning against swimming since this was a highly populated shark area and especially warned us to STAY AWAY FROM SEALS because if you see a seal, there must be a shark nearby. Throughout the couple of hours we stayed at the beach, laying out and reading, we periodically saw seals swimming super close to shore, and that told me enough to stay out of the water, besides occasionally coming to dip my feet in.
After the sun thoroughly wore us out, we stopped back at our inn for a quick shower before heading up to Provincetown for dinner.
Provincetown was hands down one of my fave places. It is like a gay haven. Walking down the street, you see handsome gay man after handsome gay man and the streets are lined with lobster shops, touristy shops, sex shops, and libraries.
We had dinner at the Canteen. I got a buddha bowl with tofu and quinoa and the most delish baked Brussels sprouts and Pax of course got a lobster roll, and we both got the strongest Frozé’s I’ve ever had.
After dinner we roamed the streets and I ran into my SOUL food. It’s like this sign was made for me. Check it out.
Naturally, I had to get one, which was pretty much just an alcoholic milkshake.
It was while I was enjoying my Mermaid’s Orgasm that I heard the news that a fatal shark attack had occurred just a few miles down from the beach we were at and took the life of a 26 year old man. I was heartbroken by this news. I had been so excited to see some sharks and was hoping I would see one, and hearing this just absolutely smacked reality into my face as I realized this wasn’t a joke.
It happened to be the first fatal shark attack since 1936. This fact blows my mind, that out of all days, the one day I come to Cape Cod, the first fatal shark attack in over 80 years just happens to be the same day I’m there. It was such a strange and tragic coincidence and my heart goes out to his friends and family.
The next day we decided to go to a nudist beach, called Longnook Beach. There happened to be a shark attack that had occurred there last month, but the man survived. We definitely knew we wouldn’t be swimming, especially after the tragic news from yesterday.
After walking about 15 minutes down the beach (and not seeing any nudists) we decided to just give no fucks, get naked, and soak up the sun.
A little while later, suddenly we decided to get up and make it down to the shore to cool off. That’s when we saw it. A black fin bobbing up and down, not too far from the shoreline. At first, Pax thought it was a seal poking it’s head up, but after looking closer, it was 100% a fin. I jumped up and down with excitement. Finally my shark sighting dreams were coming true! (and thank goodness I was on land and not on sea)
After a conversation with another nudist (finally we weren’t alone) we concluded that it was indeed a shark fin. We saw two more fins like that throughout the day, and I suspect that some of them might have been Sun Fish, an animal I didn’t even know existed until yesterday, but I really WANT to believe that the first fin we saw was indeed from a great white. According to my shark app, there had been six great white shark sightings in one day alone, after not having any all week.
After being thoroughly satisfied from spending all day naked under the hot sun and from the excitement of seeing 3 fins (shark or not) and many seals, we made our way to our final stop before home; a wine tasting at Truro Vineyards.
The tastings were only $10 each and you could try 5 of the wines. They carried 10 different wines, so between Paxton and I, we were able to try all of them. We both fell in love with the 2017 Vignoles which tasted like pineapple juice and after buying a few bottles, we settled in for the drive home.
We spent the whole ride home blasting Broadway tunes as I introduced some of my favorites to Paxton since he’s never listened to ANY musical theater and wincing as we realized we were completely sunburnt from our nakey adventures under the sun.
All in all, it was a fun weekend and a completely doable weekend trip from where we live.
I want to again acknowledge the young man who died from the shark attack and warn y’all that if you head up to the Cape, take heed of the signs and do not swim in the water! Even this merm who was dying to swim, just stayed in the shallow end and didn’t go deeper than the waist.
Nature is an awesome, magical thing, but it’s moments like these that we are reminded it is 100 times more powerful than us. All we can do is revel in its majesty.
Mermaid Musings 