Cape: Monomoy to Swan River, Herring

[JohnHuth]

I had the good fortune to have a couple of weekends down at the Cape.

Nothing really remarkable, except some fun conditions. My house is near Allen Harbor in Harwichport. First day was Allen Harbor to N. Monomoy and back. Passing Stage Harbor was interesting - the current can run about 2 knots on draining and weaving past all the fishing boats can be a challenge. The change in the ocean-scape is amazing on either side of Stage Harbor - it goes from more or less contained shoreline to a festival of shifting sand. Unbelievable.

On the way back, I ran into a big fog bank. I basically have memorized every compass bearing from Monomoy to Allen and beyond, so it was fun to do some dead-reckoning compass work. I was out of sight of land most of the time, but checked in on the major landmarks. Unfortunately, when I got home, two boys were lost in the fog. I found one, and the other was eventually found by the CG when the fog lifted.

The next day, I went along the coast to the Swan River inlet. The stretch of land from Herring River west to Swan is very shoaly, and in a strong SW wind can be a real challenge, as the waves break pretty far out from land. I was thinking about trying to get into the Swan, but the waves were breaking pretty strong, so I bagged it.

This weekend, went toward Stage, but the wind was behind me (from SW) and I got as far as Cockle Cove, and turned around. It was a big of a haul getting back - wind in the 15-20 knot range and 2-4 foot waves.

Finally, yesterday, I went up and down the length of the Herring. The tide was ebbing, so I got a fair amount of tide current (maybe half a knot on average, but in the constrictions, more like 1.5 knots). This was great for me, because I wanted to work on carving turns. With all the meandering of the river and the current, I really got a great workout on my boat leans and all that.

So, nothing remarkable, just some interesting paddling at the cape.