WELLFLEET – With better weather on the way, the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary is providing Cape Codders with a guide to some of the best locations around the Cape to go paddling.
Wellfleet Bay also hosts guided paddles, with available dates and times of scheduled trips to be found on massaudubon.org.
Kayaking trips are also available for groups on-demand.
Wellfleet Bay lists these areas as follows:
Great Island, Wellfleet
Mainland Cape Cod’s most isolated coastline, Great Island is a 6-mile barrier beach and island system separating Cape Cod Bay from Wellfleet Bay. Our aim is to paddle out of the Herring River basin and along the glacial bluffs of Great Island with a rest stop at the southern tip. We often see ospreys and oyster catchers, along with wading and shorebirds.
Nauset Marsh, Eastham
In the heart of the Cape Cod National Seashore Park, an extensive salt marsh creek system allows paddler inside access to the Nauset beach system. Ideally we reach Nauset Inlet with a brief walk to observe feeding gray seals, various species of gulls and terns, and in season, staging shorebirds. It is perhaps the best estuary in the outer Cape for herons and egrets. Because of sections that may be affected by both tide and wind, this trip may require some moderate by sustained paddling.
Upper Pleasant Bay, Orleans
Pleasant Bay is Cape Cod’s largest embayment, sharing its shorelines with the towns of Orleans, Brewster, Harwich, and Chatham. This paddle starts at the northern end of Pleasant Bay where, depending on wind conditions, we can set out for one of the undeveloped islands or paddle into numerous salt pond backwaters. Pleasant Bay has the largest concentration of nesting ospreys on the Outer Cape. Sections of the paddle allow us to paddle over a healthy eel grass community that teems with a variety of crabs and mollusks.
By TIM DUNN, CapeCod.com News Center
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