Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown - By Michael Cunningham Page 0,8

If I tell you that he stood exultantly among hundreds of shrieking white birds that circled and swooped furiously around him, looking just like a figure out of Dante, grinning majestically, while I stood by and worried about what it was doing to the birds, you may know everything you need to know about why we were together and why we had to part.

THE SALT MARSH

Just beyond the jetty, past the hairpin curve Commercial Street makes as it turns back on itself and changes its name to Bradford Street, is the salt marsh. The long road that starts at the landward end of Cape Cod ends here, at this wild lawn of sea grass. The marsh reliably tells the time, the state of the weather, and the season: emerald in spring and summer, gold in fall, various browns in winter. Wind when it blows raises flashes and swells of paler color among the grasses and reeds, so you can stand at the edge of the marsh and see just how strongly the wind is blowing, and in what direction. Because the marsh is always at least partly flooded, reflected sky lights the grass from below. On sunny days it can seem unnaturally bright, and on cloudy days it looks even brighter.

It is puddled during low tides, inundated when the tide is high. It terminates in a range of dunes, beyond which is the ocean, though you can’t see it from where you now stand. You may see a heron or two, wading among the tidal pools. You will assuredly see the little white thumb of Wood End lighthouse, far away. (It is not the one on Long Point.) I’ve never gone there and don’t intend to. I know—or rather, I can imagine—that up close it’s merely an old plaster tower, its paint cracked and peeling, spattered all over its concrete base with seagull shit. I prefer that it remain a distant object, its romance undiluted, an image out of Virginia Woolf. I believe every city and town should contain at least one remote spot, preferably a beautiful and mysterious one, that you see but never visit.

HERRING COVE

Herring Cove is one of Provincetown’s two official public beaches. The other is Race Point. Herring Cove is the nearer of the two to town—you can walk or bike there. In summer, the town loop bus will take you there for free. From the salt marsh it’s about a half mile to the official public entrance, with its parking lot and snack bar, but my preferred point of ingress is the nearer one, across the dunes.

Go north from the salt marsh, past a small, murky lagoon to the right of the road, into a stand of trees, and stop where you see all the bicycles parked. There’s an unambiguous entrance there, between the trees.

It takes about fifteen minutes to get to the beach. You will find yourself in tidal flats, with high dunes on either side and the curving wall of dunes that line the ocean straight ahead. You may see the masts and upper deck of a boat sailing by, and that is a good if slightly surreal sight, a half-boat skimming placidly along over the sand.

There is a vague but discernible path, and you should stay on it. The landscape is fragile—it does not respond well to footsteps. If you’re walking out at low tide, the sand will be mostly dry, dotted here and there with clear pools. If you’re walking out at high tide, you will have to wade. If you go there in late afternoon or early evening, the dunes will glow with a pink-orange light like the inside of a conch shell.

The tidal pools, if it’s medium or high tide, will be full of minnows and little blue-black crabs. It is possible, though very rare, to see schools of squid that have gotten trapped by the receding tide and are waiting for the ocean to return. Squid alive are nothing like the ones in fish markets. They go opaque when they die. Alive, they are translucent, like jellyfish, and their eyes, though utterly unmammalian, are pale blue. When they swim, you see their eyes most clearly, and the spark of their tentacles.

Because this terrain is periodically submerged, you’ll find a good deal of what the ocean contains as you go along. The path is strewn with the bodies of crabs, which bleach to a freckled salmon color that they do not possess in life and ultimately to alabaster. You