Arrive - July/August 2013

Here you get a palpable sense of being far, far removed from the mainland, marooned, as you are, on a desolate stretch of sand reaching out into the silver-blue sea.

canvas—their luminous imagined landscapes made me wish I had a bigger budget for art.

The next morning I stopped o; at the deservedly famous Moby Dick’s on Route 6, where I somehow managed to polish o; a whole lobster, a cup of silky New England clam chowder, and a bucket of steamers myself. This shameful scene unfolded in an open-air dining room where the wind blew in over swaying marsh grasses and hissed its way through the screens. It was fuel for my final push to Provincetown, the northernmost tip of the Cape. This final stretch of high-way was easily the most beautiful—a sand-licked thread of asphalt winding its way through pine-dotted dunes before finally terminating in the colorful clapboard artists’ haven of P-town. Equal parts grit and charm, it’s a weird wonderland of gold-leafed bed-and-breakfasts, weather-beaten dive bars, upscale restaurants and downmarket souvenir shops. But I headed straight for the docks. I had something else in mind.

Just o; the northern shore of the Cape is the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary—one of the finest places for whale watching in the country. As Provincetown is already 40 miles at sea, you don’t even have to leave the shore to spot pods of humpbacks, minkes and finbacks. I paid my $39 and boarded the Dolphin VIII for an afternoon voyage. Whatever apprehension I had about being 30 years younger than the average passenger soon disappeared when our ship came upon a half-dozen humpbacks, spraying geysers of seawater from their blowholes, deftly executing barrel rolls, and breaching entirely out of the cold blue waters with the kind of alacrity that made you wonder whether they were on the payroll. There is no way to describe how exhilarating it is to watch this drama unfold mere inches away from your boat. But later that night, as I unwound at Victor’s restaurant with striped bass carpaccio and what may have been my 72nd oyster in as many hours, I couldn’t help but remember the words of my hostess at Harwich Port.