A Hatteras Fan Goes North To Try Out the Other Cape

The Cape's northern outpost, Provincetown, is a former rough-edged fishing village turned tourist haven. (John Briley)

It's an irresistible scene, so we wait for an incoming tide, rent a kayak from a roadside shack and follow a road until it ends at a marsh shoreline of crushed shells and pebbles next to the Eastham Aquaculture Technology & Training Center. There we find Henry Lind, the town's natural resources director and shellfish constable, unloading supplies from a Toyota Prius. He answers my questions about the state of the local shellfishery (poor, due chiefly to pollution and overfishing), then glances at the boat.

"Stay away from that inlet," he nods seaward. "On a changing tide, the outbound rips at six knots. Your next stop is Portugal."

Mercifully, the greenheads are still dormant, and we ride the incoming tide into the marsh, through wind- and salt-swept grasses, and out toward the sandy humps of the barrier islands. Suddenly facing a strong onshore breeze, we have to paddle twice as hard to go half as far; we run aground -- twice -- and disembark to pull the kayak through shin-deep mud. But it's happy work, in the middle of a protected marsh, with salubrious ocean air and water streaming in.

Finally reaching the island, we walk over to the ocean. The beach is absent of vegetation and only lightly strewn with driftwood and dried sea grass. A lone fisherman casts into the anarchic currents of the inlet, his reverie and focus unbroken until . . . his cellphone rings. "Ah, man, you gotta get out here," he yells over the wind. "They're hittin' like crazy!"

* * *

One night after a dinner of locally caught tuna at Joe's Beach Road Bar and Grille in Orleans, we drop in on a baseball game between the Orleans Cardinals and Chatham Athletics. The teams are among 10 that play in the Cape Cod Baseball League, billed as the country's best amateur league. College players from around the United States -- drafted for the summer by invitation only -- spend the season bunking with local families and playing for big-league scouts and local fans alike.

With the teams locked in a 1-1 tie in the eighth inning, we settle in on the grass a few feet outside the right field foul pole. Families with their picnic baskets sit on blankets on the hillside, teenagers flirt in the cool night, and a guy who had interrupted a shopping errand to catch a few innings stands nearby, rocking his 5-year-old son in his arms.

The day after the wedding (and to protect the innocent, that is my final mention of that party) we drive about 30 miles from Orleans to the Cape's northern outpost, Provincetown, a former rough-edged fishing village turned tourist haven.

We had hoped to rent bikes here but learn that major portions of the Province Lands trail system, renowned for its sinuous course through protected dunes, were underwater due to an unusually rainy June. So, like any respectable American tourists, we got back in our car and drove through Province Lands (which is part of the national seashore), disembarking twice to take in views and feed the mosquitoes. The Province Lands are part lunar sandscape, part stunted pine forest and reveal yet one more face of this varied landscape.

Pullling into P-town proper, I now see where all the tourists have been this weekend. Kitsch clutters the main streets, and a Portuguese festival is in full swing, an annual celebration of the town's early settlers. Feeling stifled by crowds and commercialism, we walk out to two massive docks, where the whale-watching boats and Boston ferries come and go.

The detour proves to be among our better moves. Fronting one dock is the Townsend Lobster & Seafood Market, and behind its unassuming screen door are the best lobster roll and New England clam chowder I've ever tasted, all delivered with delightful cheeriness by a Bulgarian waitress.

Her conviviality is typical of so many people we meet, from the World Cup-tolerant staff at the Land Ho! in Orleans, who indulged my friend Francis as he shouted in French at the television, to the woman at Race Point Beach who waived our entrance fee when we said we'd stay only a few minutes, to bartender Drew Downing at the Chatham Squire in Chatham.

"I love this lifestyle," Downing tells me as I lean into a bowl of seafood gumbo. Around the rectangular bar, commercial fishermen are downing Jack-and-cokes, and the waitstaff is recounting exploits from the prior night. "I hit the beach in the morning with my fishing gear and my surfboard," Downing continues. "If nothing's happening, I turn around and get my mountain bike. We've got some legit trails up here. You gotta come back up."

He refills my iced tea and looks around to see who is listening before adding, "After high season, man. This place is awesome in September."

I wouldn't doubt that for a second. Hatteras will always have my heart. Cape Cod, at last, has my attention.

John Briley last wrote for Travel on kayaking in Chicago.