WELLFLEET STREET
FISH PEDICURE
GLOB OF OPHYRIDIUM VERSATILE
BEWARE STAIRS!Cape Cod is basically where all the soil from the melting glacier that scraped Vinalhaven down to bedrock was deposited in one giant ridge of sand. We drive 5 hours from Rockland, Maine to Wellfleet, Mass where we are staying two nights at Chez Sven bed and breakfast.
Chez Sven is on the Old Kings Highway, which turns out to be a track in the sand going uphill into the forest. The B & B is a restored 18th century sailor’s cottage. We access our room on the top of the house by grabbing onto the rigging and hauling our luggage hand over fist up some very steep stairs.
Rena’s face blanches when she takes a look back down the way we came.
“How will I ever get down?” she asks.
“Same way you came up,” I reply cheerfully. “ Just grab the rope and let yourself down the companionway backwards. It’s what able body seamen do on whaling ships.”
“Don’t tell me we’re going to have to do this when we go whaling tomorrow?” she exasperates.
“Not whaling - whale watching,” I explain. “There’s a big difference - handrails instead of rigging for one thing. And no sharp harpoons.”
It’s about 1 PM. After unpacking we ask our hostess Alexandra Grabbe to recommend the afternoon’s activity.
Chez Sven is on the Old Kings Highway, which turns out to be a track in the sand going uphill into the forest. The B & B is a restored 18th century sailor’s cottage. We access our room on the top of the house by grabbing onto the rigging and hauling our luggage hand over fist up some very steep stairs.
Rena’s face blanches when she takes a look back down the way we came.
“How will I ever get down?” she asks.
“Same way you came up,” I reply cheerfully. “ Just grab the rope and let yourself down the companionway backwards. It’s what able body seamen do on whaling ships.”
“Don’t tell me we’re going to have to do this when we go whaling tomorrow?” she exasperates.
“Not whaling - whale watching,” I explain. “There’s a big difference - handrails instead of rigging for one thing. And no sharp harpoons.”
It’s about 1 PM. After unpacking we ask our hostess Alexandra Grabbe to recommend the afternoon’s activity.
“It’s hot enough,” she recommends. “So why not go for a swim in the kettle hole.”
“Kettle hole?” we ask simultaneously.
Kettles are blocks of ice calved off the receding glaciers which got buried in the outwash of sediment from the meltwater. When the buried ice blocks melted, circular depressions called kettle holes were left in the sand . They filled with water, becoming sandy swimming holes, usually less than 2 km in diameter.
Alexandra gives us printed directions of how to find Dyer Pond, the nearest of these fluvio-glacial landforms. The path is not marked but we don’t get lost. The hills are covered with white pines and some oak scrub. Delightful sharp smells of pine pitch and hot sand fill the air.
We are the only bathers today at Dyer Pond. Our own private Kettle hole. That must make us Ma and Pa Kettle! The sand bottom is very gentle on the feet and the water incredibly warm for a day in late May. Tiny fish gather round my feet as I wade in the shallows and nibble at my toes. My first fish pedicure! (It’s a Chinese thing.)
I also note some blobs of what looks like lime jell-o sticking to the kettle’s submerged vegetation and underwater logs. I pick up some of this primordial ooze and examine. It’s not frog eggs and it definitely has chlorophyll. Hmmm- unclassified jelly blobs. Later I find out that the blobs are gelatinous colonies of a single-celled Proctista species of ciliate called Ophrydium versatile. The colonies can be from 2 to 30 cm in size and are found in spring in the slightly acidic waters of bogs and ponds.
I swim back and forth across the kettle, trying not to get nibbled by perch or globbed by Ophrydia, and then lay out in the sun while Rena goes wading. Yesterday, abandoned quarries and today, kettle holes filled with toe- eating fish -- it’s a post-glacial water park adventure for Daktari.
After climbing the stairs to the crow’s nest at Chez Sven, we change into long pants and tee shirts and take a stroll on Wellfleet’s main street. There are many beautiful art galleries, a nice marina and lots of flowers everywhere. What a lovely way to spend an afternoon.
At 5 PM we meet our sister-in-law Josephine and her friend Peter for dinner in Provincetown. Whale watching tomorrow! It’s our last day of the vacation.
DAKTARI
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