Cape Light

Story and photographs by Eric Lindberg

Catching the day’s last light at Menemsha Harbor on Martha’s Vineyard

The book I found in a Santa Cruz bookstore pictured a distant shore of rare brilliance. Thirty years later, would its wonders match my long-deferred dreams?

It began on a rainy afternoon 30 years ago with a chance encounter in a Santa Cruz bookstore. Propped on a table just inside the door was Cape Light, the now-classic collection of photos by Joel Meyerowitz depicting 1970s Cape Cod. More painterly than photographic, each image glowed with a pearly luster as if lit from within. These dreamy colors were like nothing I’d seen before. As an amateur photographer, I was instantly smitten with that light.

That afternoon I bought the book and for the next few decades it followed me as I moved around the country. Occasionally I would thumb through it and find myself drawn once again toward the misty light of those Atlantic seascapes. Then I’d tuck it back in the bookcase and promise myself “some day.”

It’s taken me 30 years to get here. Standing on the ferry dock at Woods Hole (see Pin 1 on the map), I’m surrounded by the luminous light that seduced Meyerowitz and artists before him. Here at the southwest tip of Cape Cod a wispy marine haze softens sharp angles and transforms familiar colors into delicate new hues. Even the cracks and flaws of the harbor buildings are muted in the forgiving Cape light.

From the dock, Martha’s Vineyard is visible across Vineyard Sound. Although the book’s photos didn’t include this triangle-shaped island, it’s infused with cultural mystique and I’ll spend a few days there before heading east for a week along the Cape. Packed with my camera gear is the dog-eared copy of Cape Light, brought not to mimic those shots but for inspiration and possibilities along the way.

Boarding the ferry, I join other passengers on the bow. The horn blasts, we ease away from the dock, and 45 minutes later we’re edging past dozens of sailboats anchored in the harbor before tying up to the landing at Vineyard Haven.

Maybe it’s the nature of small islands that encourages a slower pace. After the bustle of the ferry dock the town feels sleepy. Nobody is in a hurry here. Tourists and locals gather along the boutiques and galleries of Main Street to dawdle and chat. There’s a long line at Mad Martha’s Ice Cream. People are doing what comes natural on islands—relaxing and slowing down.

This laid back ambiance extends inland as I follow winding roads past neat fields bordered by old stone fences. Dirt driveways curve away from the road toward idyllic cottages set back in the woods. It’s New England on an island. I could spend the summer here.

While the island’s interior reflects provincial New England, the seaside town of Edgartown hints at the affluence found on the Vineyard. The harbor where tall-masted whaling ships once anchored is now home to a world-class yachting community.

Elegantly reserved former homes of ship captains line streets and luxuriant gardens droop under the weight of fragrant blossoms. Clipped Kennedy-esque accents spill out from upscale boutiques. After the rustic center of the island, this is a rarified world.

Edgartown (see Pin 2 on the map) is the departure point for one of the world’s shortest ferry rides. The $3 fare buys passage for me and my rental bike across the narrow channel, and three minutes later we bump the dock at Chappaquiddick Island. This tiny island is easily explored by bike and a short ride down a quiet road takes me to Mytoi, an elegant Japanese garden set in a lovely pine forest. Another 10 minutes by bike brings me to Cape Pogue Wildlife Refuge with its pristine barrier beach. But ambling along a sandy strand is not the only reason I’ve peddled this far.

To reach the beach I need to cross the infamous bridge where a young Senator Ted Kennedy took the plunge that derailed his seemingly unstoppable ascent toward the White House. Within days the word Chappaquiddick was added to America’s cultural lexicon. Aside from added guardrails, the scene is almost identical to photos from 40 years ago. Standing on the bridge and peering into the dark tidewater swirling below, I consider how events at this spot likely changed the course of American history.

Returning to Edgartown, I turn west toward Gay Head Lighthouse on the island’s western tip. A packed parking lot and souvenir stands lining the walkway to the overlook almost convince me to turn and leave, but the vista from the bluff across Aquinnah Cliffs and the blue Atlantic beyond redeems the spot. And one of the island’s gems lies just around the corner.

Locating the trailhead down the road, I take a sandy, 10-minute trail to the ocean and follow Moshup Beach north to the cliffs. Despite the easy walk, only a few people are here. Seen from the base, the 200-foot Aquinnah Cliffs are an earthy palette of green, red, black, and white clays warmed by soft afternoon light. It dawns on me that the sartorial hues I saw around Edgartown—the blue Oxford shirts and pink blouses, the white summer dresses and crisp khakis—harmonize perfectly with the island’s cerulean skies, rosy horizons, cottony clouds, and tawny sand.

While compact Martha’s Vineyard is easy to navigate, my first day back on Cape Cod has me reaching frequently for the map. With 550 miles of coastline to explore, it’s obvious that one week here will be no match for the two summers that Meyerowitz spent shooting the area. Yet each unfamiliar road I take reveals new photographic possibilities. Route 6a along the Old King’s Highway takes me through centuries-old towns like Barnstable, Dennis, and Brewster, each filled with historic homes and steepled churches. But it’s the graveyards that catch my eye.

Spilling down from the surrounding hills and ending literally at roadside, countless cemeteries with ancient tilted gravestones are poignant reminders that the Cape has been inhabited for a long time. Wandering through a few, I find weather-beaten markers carved with gaunt skulls and English surnames dating back to the early 1700s. Some residents reached their 80s before passing, but many died in infancy or childhood.

Old King’s Highway is just 34 miles long but I spend a day here poking around villages and stopping at sea grass marshes rich with earthy aromas of salt and mudflats.

The Sandwich Boardwalk leads to sweeping views of Cape Cod Bay.

Boardwalks at Sandwich and Yarmouthport take me over tidal channels to the ocean. The beaches are more popular than these marshes and I enjoy solitude along the quiet walkways. But those looking for a livelier seaside setting don’t have far to look.

Each afternoon at Chatham fishing pier (see Pin 3 on the map) an eager congregation of tourists, gulls, and seals gathers. As tourists cluster along the viewing deck above the dock to watch crews unloading the day’s catch from returning fishing boats, seals and gulls battle over whatever washes overboard. Oblivious to the audience overhead, deck hands haul coolers and dump buckets. They’ve been up since before dawn and it shows in the weary faces and fish-stained clothes.

He looks like a guy you’d want on your side in a rough seaside bar. When I spot him unloading lobster traps dockside at Chatham Harbor, I’m hesitant to approach. Jeff is a muscular lobsterman with tattooed forearms and hands roughly in proportion to the claw size on a fully-grown lobster. A long thick beard hides much of his face.

When I ask if he’ll pose for photos, he grins shyly. “Where should I stand?” Within minutes I’m hearing about life on a fishing boat and finding he’s as gentle as a teddy bear. But he’s clearly of the same sturdy stock as many locals I’ll meet in the days to come.

As I wander across the Cape, I find occasional glimmers of the light that Meyerowitz chased with his vintage 8” by 10” view camera, one expensive sheet of film at a time. Some days bring sodden skies and blowing winds and I sit in my car and watch the rain. But on clear mornings of dewy stillness and on afternoons when the sky opens and honeyed light pours over the harbors and dunes, I begin to see what the photographer was after.

There’s no better place to watch this interplay between light, land, and sea than at Cape Cod National Seashore (see Pin 4 on the map), a 40-mile stretch of coastline protected in 1961 when President Kennedy signed a bill to create this crown jewel of the Cape. Among its handful of pristine beaches, Cahoon Hollow Beach is considered one of the best. And it’s here that I’m reminded to put my camera aside occasionally and look with my eyes instead of through a lens.

The next morning finds me at water’s edge as a mob of terns and gulls wheels overhead and dives into the water to nab fingerlings. Along the beach sandpipers and plovers race ahead of the foamy surge and poke in the sand for morsels. Just beyond the breakers a lone seal watches me from the water. With only a few walkers out at this hour, the uninhibited wildlife is having a feeding frenzy.

But sea birds and pinnipeds are not alone in their yearning for Cape Cod seafood. I stop frequently at clam shacks and seaside cafes to feast on lobster rolls, clam chowder, lobster bisque, scallops, and the famous Wellfleet oysters. Paired with warm, crusty bread and a crisp white wine, or eaten straight from a paper plate on a sunset beach, the succulent delight of local seafood is a quintessential part of the Cape experience.

I’ve come to the end of the road. Tucked into the curled tip of land at the end of Cape Cod and surrounded on three sides by water, offbeat Provincetown is in every sense as far toward the edge as the Cape gets. Pedestrian-friendly Commercial Street with block after block of eateries, funky boutiques, and galleries is the vibrant core of town. It’s also the stage for some of the most eclectic people-watching in America as the flamboyant, the eccentric, and the artsy mix easily with tourists from around the globe. For a few midday hours I put away my camera, get a lobster roll to go, and relax on a bench to watch the world pass by.

On my last evening I travel deep into the dunes. Art’s Dunes Tours has been leading trips into the protected National Seashore dunes for 60 years, following sandy tracks not open to the public. As we drive through the gate the sparse landscape turns surreal with starkly sculpted mountains of sand. Guide Barbara Picehurst stops the van on a ridge surrounded by a sea of golden hills.

“Until the early 1700s these dunes were mostly covered by thick forest. They still would be if settlers hadn’t cut down every tree in sight for fuel and planting crops.” We see where native beach grass has been planted to stabilize the dunes and keep them from migrating across roads and into town. Barb shows us historic shacks still popular with artists and others seeking a quiet if primitive retreat.

We leave the dunes and pull onto Race Point Beach just before sunset. Everyone spreads out along the shore and as if on cue, three seals swim past just as the sun dips into the sea. The squealing gulls fly off for the night and the beach is hushed but for the whispering of wavelets slapping soothingly on the sand.

Facing a three-hour drive back to Boston the next morning, I walk out on Provincetown jetty for one final Cape sunrise. It’s a good one; the purpling sky turns to lavender and slides into pink as the sun climbs over the harbor. Buttery sunlight spills across the swaying sea grass and for a few sweet moments the world is awash in amber.

For a few moments I consider the path that led me from that Santa Cruz bookstore to this Atlantic seashore. It’s a cliché but also one of life’s inevitable truths; a young man’s dreams moving aside to make room for life’s responsibilities. Like a favorite book we keep, the imaginings of a distant shore are shelved but never forgotten. Cape Cod always remained just beyond the horizon.

Until now.

Eric Lindberg is a freelance writer and photographer based in Lakewood, Colo. He is the 2011 Travel Photographer of the Year, Society of American Travel Writers.

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