Things you don't want to miss.

If you are coming to the Cape there are some things you don't want to miss. A few of our favorites are highlighted here but a more extensive list can be found on our website link below. All of these include festival atmosphere and food throughout the week for the event.

The Great Schooner Regatta in Provincetown is a mini tall ship race over Labor Day Weekend. Different class of sail ships compete for the glory. Landlubbers can watch the race from a live feed being offered at local venue's or the daring can arrange passage as a spectator on board one of the vessels (fee involved). Many of the crew parties are open to the public so there definitely is a party atmosphere to enjoy. The races begin that week and end on Saturday.

The Bourne Scallop Festival is all about fried seafood and beer. Just over the bridge and a block from the old railroad depot look for the crowd and the big tent. This fair has amusements, seafood, craft booths and live rock n roll bands on stage for your entertainment. Scallops is the main fair but not the only fair. Don't' forget to save room for the fresh strawberry shortcake at the end.
By the way, the Cape Cod Railroad has a deal with them to take the train from Hyannis over the Canal bridge right by the event for one price. Loads of fun!

Next month I'll share my October favorites. In the meantime, you can click the link below for other events and links to their websites.

Read on...

As reported by the Cape Cod Times

Dune Shacks, who owns them? Left over from the sixties when squatters took to making homes on the National Park lands their fate on the National Seashore is still up in the air. The shacks still exist without the squatters but their preservation is in question. Some call them eyesores while others see them as a piece of our heritage to be enjoyed by the public. (The Seashore doles out overnight stays in the shacks for the public via a lottery. I was on the list for eight years paying an annual fee and my number never came up.)

Scrimshaw is a dying art form - literally. The decade old ban on whale hunting has eliminated the legal trade of whales teeth. The art form is dying because the whales are living! Nantucket still has a couple of artists that carry on the work but their finding it very hard to acquire the teeth to do their work. They have to rely on reworking existing teeth or finding the limited numbers that are acquired legally through research.

Famous people come to Cape Cod. Obama's stimulus hits Martha's Vineyard. His families summer vacationing is a boon for hotels, eateries and shops but not for the tourists. try getting a hotel room or lunch at a local eatery. His large entourage creates quite the crowd when the family goes anywhere on the island.
The town of Bourne, on the other hand, is thrilled to have Adam Sandler and company in town now. Here to film his next movie - Grown Ups - they have taken over Water Wizz water park on the Cranberry Highway.

The nudists are coming! Actually, they're already here in Marstons Mills. Growing up on the Cape I was aware of the colony that had its camp on the shores of a local lake. As a kid I always wondered why a portion of the lake was fenced off from onlookers. Then I learned about skinny dipping. Quiet as they have been they have been in the past the silence was broken recently when they put out the word - nationally - for volunteers to help break the world record for skinny dipping. Surprisingly it only took 32 nudist to make it in the Guinness Book of World Records. Maybe because the water was a bit chilly that morning.

Harwich Cranberry Festival cancelled there annual event this year. Popular but grossly unprofitable is not the mix that works in tough economic climates. The event relies on volunteers to man it, donations from the public and fees from the vendors to support it. The economy was the lynch pin in the decision but burned out volunteers trying to make it work took its toll as well. Maybe a year on hiatus will do them good.

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