Moving out

After much consternation, procrastination and back and forth pseudo-promises (to myself and others), I've decided to suck it up and get lost. I'll be moving to Boston this September. Although I don't have a job lined up, It will give me something to work for over the next month to get my act together and pull up my pants, so to speak.

I moved back to the Cape last year, mainly to help take care of my biological father, Jim. Now that he is maintaining and I'm the one who's floundering, I felt it time to bid sayonara to the The Strong Arm. Most Cape Codders grow up here and appreciate it but once they graduate high school, want to get the hell out of here. Alaska, California and Hawaii are three locations that are frequently sought out.

Although it's technically an island, considering it's surrounded by water, it's not really considered one, because the canal is man make. Either way, the Cape has a way of holding on to you, just like Nantucket, or Martha's Vineyard and it's tough to get free. I have plenty of friends who have never lived anywhere else but the Cape. They would say to me: "Mark, that's great that you can just pick up and move around the country. I could never do it" I ask them why and they say: "cause I'm scared to go where I don't know anyone or have a network". Now these dudes are rough and tumble, but their Kryptonite is being out of their element; the unknown.

Anyone who's from the Cape can understand the love/hate relationship you have with this place. In one sense, it's the bomb: one of the most beautiful places on earth (in my opinion), but it's also a black hole vortex, that sucks you in and tough to get out of. I had to go off Cape this week and as I passed over the Bourne bridge, I thought to myself: "damn, it's been a while" (since I have been off this little hook). It was eerie, because it was the same feeling I have when I return to the Cape after being gone for a while.



By the way, I've posted the sunset picture on the top before (Casey) but It's one of my favorites and I thought it fitting to post it again.

Where is my mind?

This past week was Ga-Ga!! It all started last weekend with hurricane Bertha serving up some gang banger waves last weekend. The first real surf we've seen for close to 3 months. Usually when a storm is in town, it usually comes and goes, within a day or two, but this baby was hanging around all F*%#ing week!!! I'm talking about 7 days of: eat, sleep, shitz, surf and work. It was bonkers and the best part was, the water is warm, so there's no need for a wetsuit: paradise.

But that was just the tip of the D. Monday night was Morgan Heritage at the Beachcomber, and I can say that it was one of the best shows I've seen in a long time. A gang of us went down and danced our faces off.

Adding to the fun factor, my college roommates were down from Connecticut for the week and rented a house in the seashore. I was so pumped up that Dan Mac, Das Mule and CO. got down to the Cape finally, Dan did it proper and stayed for the whole week, caught the Morgan Heritage show, tried surfing and had a great week on the Cape.

But alas, all that glitter's is not gold. I actually had to earn money to support myself in between all the madness. Not to mention be home by 9 pm and 6 am ready to go (or should I say blow?!). I've been on a cloud nine, but now I'm a super nova and my energy level is all but spent and I'm emotionally and physically exhausted. Ready to implode.

where is my mind?

007

A few hours ago, I was coming back from surfing and I saw this cool delivery van on the off ramp of the highway. This 'bread' van was sporting a set of nice chrome rims and the funniest part instead of having a traditional roll up door on the tailgate, it was sporting a steel door off of somebody's front door of their house!!!
I tried to snap a pic on the ramp, but only caught the tail end going through the stop lights. I was talking to the infamous, Mike Bik at the same time and I was relaying the spotting to him, over the phone. Mike and I met up at Scotty's Pizza for dinner about 30 minutes later and as we were leaving, Mike says: "is that the van you saw on the highway?" I looked up, and sure enough, he was spot on. I was dying laughing and had to snap a proper picture of the rig. The coup de grâce, was the fact that this beast is a registered camper.

Big Bertha!!!

Hurricane Bertha is sending waves our way and the whole eastern seaboard is pumped up. She's still a few hundred miles southeast of Bermuda, but the waves are starting to roll in. Finally, after two months in the doldrums, we will be bestowed with some ample waves. Nantucket is going to be ripping tomorrow, I wish I could hop a boat over there in the morning, but duty calls :( The buoys are starting to spike from the period swells from the storm and if all goes well, it will track offshore and stall out in the jet stream when it gets to the colder waters east of the cape. Should produce some good surfing for the weekend and through next week.

The picture below is from last Sunday, but i saved it, cause i thought it looked like an oyster. Ironically, my roommates from UMass are renting a house in Wellfleet for a week, starting Saturday. They will be in for a treat.

Back on track

Billy

This is the first pic from my new camera, taken today at just after 1:30 pm EST. I have been mourning the loss of my Olympus digital for a few months now, and last weekend I finally sucked it up and bought a new replacement. This little baby is the bomb: she's sleek, red and packing a 10.2 mega pixel punch. It was a screaming deal and I'm elated beyond words. Just need to go out and get another memory card, (cause the one from my old digi isn't compatible) oh well.

Happy 4th of July!!!!! and Shark soup...

My favorite holiday





As I was trolling around the internet I stumbled on an article about a group of seal watchers witnessing a great white attacking a seal off of Monomoy Island, off the elbow of the Cape. http://www.divemaster.com/diving-news/seal-watchers-watch-shark-kill-seal_14323.html

Last summer, I was surfing at Marconi beach with two other kids and one of them says: "i think i just saw a dolphin". I'm like "what??? I've never seen a dolphin out here". I asked him to point at where it was, and as soon as he pointed, a huge 2-3 foot dorsal fin popped out of the water and bobbed up and down with the surf. I thought I was tripping, but it was real. I told them I'd rather try to identify the fish from shore and rode the next wave in. Turns out, it was probably an ocean sunfish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_sunfish which can grow to well over 1000 pounds and have giant dorsal fins that protrude through surface while feeding.


Surfers are weary of sharks, obviously. Anybody that goes in the ocean and flails their arms and dangles their legs has to be a bit intrepid. I guarantee you, every surfer that's worth their weight has either been scared out of the water by shadows or had an overwhelming fear of sharks at one point or another. I remember talking to a close family friend whose an avid fisherman and sea captain and he said to me: "if you'd seen the things I've seen, you'd never step foot in the water"

Over the past few years, there have been multiple confirmed sightings of great whites; prowling and feeding around the Cape. Mostly in and around Chatham and it's burgeoning seal population (see top pic.) As a a result, I have become more cognizant of the presence of sharks.

In Sept. 2004, an estimated 15 foot great white was spotted off of Chatham chomping some seals only 50 feet from the shore and a week later a surfer told me that his brother was surfing at the second-cut off Nauset beach and came within 50 ft of a great white.

Oddly enough, a 15 ft great white became lodged in a lagoon not far off Woods Hole just a few days later... I went down to see the shark first hand, but instead hopped the ferry to Martha's Vineyard, to visit a friend and surf the Indian summer swell that had popped up that weekend.

Little did I know, this weekend was the 30th anniversary of Jaws, and the whole island (where much of the movie was filmed) was awash in the festivities. I was making ill humored jokes in the water, about how ironic it would be if one of us got chomped during "Jaws weekend".