The red flag is flying at Chatham. The beach is closed to swimming not because it is too rough
but because of sharks. Great
whites have been cruising the shoreline looking for lunch, the grey seals that
are currently sunning themselves on the nearby island. The single public parking lot is packed
with tourists and arguments keep breaking out over the next available spot. Chatham isn’t friendly towards
outsiders – parking on any street carries a $500 fine. The houses are “humble” Cape Cods, not
opulent like those around Bar Harbor, but the total land value is more than the
GNP of many developing countries.
Farther up the cape the land is undeveloped thanks to the
National Parks’ Cape Cod National Seashore. The Seashore stretches for more than 100 miles of
dunes, pines, oaks and marshes and is a wonderful place to look for birds. We camped in North Truro, just south of
Provincetown, the artsy-ist spot on the Cape. The weather continued to be autumnal, too cold and windy for
swimming and the fishing was off, too.
