Paddling Nauset Marsh

After our hike to Race Point Lighthouse, we drove back down the Cape to Salt Pond Landing, where we parked, ate our lunch, and then launched our kayaks out into Nauset Marsh.  As we launced, we exchanged pleasantries with a fisherman who told us he caught some striped bass in Salt Pond:

One of the Cape Cod National Seashore Visitor Centers is located on Salt Pond, and we spotted it as we paddled out into the pond:

This queer little barge-like thing mystified us as we paddled about it, but we figured that it carries monitoring equipment for environmental information about Salt Pond and is maintained by the National Park Service or scientists under the NPS authority:

Salt Pond wasn't large, and it wasn't long before we paddled out the channel from the pond into Nauset Marsh, past some (presumably) NPS structures:

Once out the channel, we entered big marsh bay waters, where dune-like shorelines were a mile or two apart.  We got the feel of paddling open bay waters without the downside of large waves:

The other day, when we were scouting boat ramps to put our kayaks into Nauset Marsh, we had come across Eastham Town Dirt Boat Ramp.  We rejected it in favor of Salt Pond Landing because the former requires a launch permit from the Town of Eastham, and the latter does not, since it is on NPS property.  As we paddled south along the shore of Nauset Marsh, we encountered the town boat ramp from the water side:

There were a number of larger motored boats moored out in the marsh waters, including this black-hulled skiff:

Kathy is always on the lookout for interesting rocks.  It wasn't long before she found this boulder near Skiff Hill.  No, Kathy, you're not allowed to take this one home.

We must admit that this boulder is quite a specimen, with a variety of colors, as well as a large colony of shellfish attached on the near side below the high-water line:

We were amazed at the sea, grass and sky vistas!

Channel markers and sandbar markers were floating all about the bay:

David caught this anhinga drying its wings on a sandbar --

-- and then as it took flight in response to our approach:

The waters of the marsh are exceptionally clear.  We could see it among the grasses in the shallow areas:

We spotted little turtles, horseshoe crabs, starfish and other creatures crawling on the bay bottom near the shorelines.

Paddling back north toward Salt Pond, we spotted the Coast Guard Station at the north end of Nauset Bay:

The Nauset Coast Guard Station was built in 1936 to replace a late nineteenth century Coast Guard Station which had stood further eastward and north, on land which has been eroded away by the ocean. The present structure was reportedly commissioned after Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morganthau Jr. and his fellow picnickers were driven in 1935 by a summer thunderstorm to seek shelter in the old and antiquated Coast Guard Station, built after the Civil War. Construction of the new station was authorized several weeks after this incident as Morganthau, who spent summers on Cape Cod, took a personal interest in the building’s construction, visiting the site during the summer of 1936.

This area of beaches has had a tradition of assistance to shipwrecked sailors. In 1802, the country’s first all volunteer life saving organization, the Massachusetts Humane Society, erected a hut on this beach. It was replaced by a larger one in 1855 and by the Nauset Life Saving Station in 1872. The building was added on to and moved twice before it was replaced by the present structure in 1936. The building was occupied by the Coast Guard as a station until 1958. It now is home to an education center as part of the Cape Cod National Seashore.

This was an unexpected discovery on our casual paddle!  Having absorbed the view of the Coast Guard Station, we worked our way back through the channel into Salt Pond, past a well-known bridge that carries an NPS hiking trail over a small channel feeding into Nauset Marsh:

Our little arms were starting to get tired, as was the anatomy on which we sat, so we paddled deliberately back across to Salt Pond Landing and debarked, mounting our kayaks on Dusty and headed to South Dennis and our RV campground.

Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy (again!), so we're not sure whether we'll get another adventure before we retrieve Sir William and head north to Wells, Maine.  In any event, we'll see you in the next blog post.