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July 2004
Offshore Magazine
ONE OF A KIND
With its lively arts scene, diverse
restaurants, drag-queen shows and cussing fishermen,
Provincetown, Massachusetts, is the most unpredictable
port in the Northeast.By Dan Mathers
(*This is the unedited version of the story. For the
edited version that appeared in Offshore, please
click on the link at the end of the story.)
Almost 400 years ago, the Puritans founded
Massachusetts. Believing a lifetime of suffering was
necessary for God to like them, they were pious, stern,
exceptionally humorless folks who were as fun to be
around as a skin rash. Today, Massachusetts residents
are more laidback, but some of that Puritan Ethic
remains. For instance, people all along the state’s
coast gleefully describe their ports as “quaint,”
“charming” and “picturesque,” which are other ways of
saying “stuffy,” “prudish” and “boring.” But there’s one
marked exception -- Provincetown.
Provincetown, which occupies the last bit of land on
Cape Cod as it curls back toward Boston, is like
Massachusetts’s rebellious child -- the one covered with
tattoos and piercings in odd places. It has an air of
unrestrained freedom and hedonism that would have sent
the Puritans into shock. That’s why my wife and I
cruised there last summer. We were looking to spend a
day in a fun and lively town, and in those categories
Provincetown does not disappoint.
Nowhere else in New England are the unfettered creative
juices of an entire town’s population bubbling over like
in Provincetown. That creativity can be seen everywhere
you look -- in the elaborate home gardens along the
streets; the art galleries filled with imaginative
paintings and sculptures; the theaters, where actors,
comics and singers perform New York City-caliber acts;
and even the sidewalks, where musicians play for change,
human statues draw crowds, and common pedestrians like a
chubby middle-aged man dressed as Little Bo Peep wear
their own forms of creative self-expression.
If you’ve heard of Provincetown, you know it is a gay
mecca, where gay men and women walk the streets largely
free from judgement. They display this freedom in many
ways, from simply holding hands to dancing together in
clubs, and for some dressing in drag. It is this sense
of freedom that makes the town so unique and
unpredictable. But while it’s Provincetown’s gay scene
that might get whispered about the most in the rest of
the state, there is much more to the town than that --
such as one of the best collections of restaurants, bars
and shops anywhere in the Northeast; the history of a
centuries-old fishing village; the culture of the
nation’s oldest art colony; and an overall laidback,
unpuritanical spirit of fun.
Like many people who travel to Provincetown, my wife
and I were in search of a sense of freedom. In February
2003, my wife Becky gave birth to our beautiful daughter
Emma. By mid-August, we were ready for a break. Don’t
get me wrong. I am convinced Emma is the most perfect
creature in the history of the world, and she’s been
magnificently easy on her parents. But Becky and I had
spent six months in Diaperland -- playing peek-a-boo and
singing made-up songs with words like “tickle wickle” in
them. We needed to be regular adults again, at least for
a day. So my mother-in-law agreed to spend the day with
Emma, and Becky and I headed for Sesuit Harbor to meet
with friends.
If Provincetown is the fist of Cape Cod’s curled arm,
Sesuit Harbor is the pit of its elbow. There we met Mark
Bowden and his wife Meg at Northside Marina and prepared
to make the roughly 20-mile cruise across Cape Cod Bay.
Mark was also embarking on a newfound sense of freedom
-- being his own captain. A longtime fisherman on other
people’s boats, Mark had recently bought his own boat, a
24-foot Sailfish powerboat.
With the bright sun overhead, we headed north, bouncing
across the choppy waters. Our first glimpse of
Provincetown was of the Pilgrim Monument, a 252-foot
granite tower built in 1910 to commemorate the Pilgrims
first landing in America. Before they landed at Plymouth
Rock to find fame in history books, the Pilgrims landed
at Provincetown, where they wrote and signed the
Mayflower Compact -- the first democratic document
written in America. Because of that, Provincetown can
claim to be the birthplace of American liberty.
As we approached the town, it looked like we had a
straight shot into Provincetown Harbor. But the harbor’s
entrance is deceiving. The Long Point Lighthouse to port
appeared to mark the last bit of land. But a long
sandbar beneath the water stretches from the lighthouse
across much of the harbor’s entrance. So we headed
right, around Green Buoy “3”, which marks the tip of the
sandbar.
Inside, the harbor was as crowded as a Walmart on
Christmas Eve, with moored boats all around. We hailed a
launch at Flyer’s Boat Rental, and after we grabbed a
mooring, the launch brought us ashore on the far west
end of Commercial Street. Commercial Street, which runs
along almost the entire length of the harbor, is the
heart of Provincetown. The central part of the street is
the most, well, commercial area of the town. It’s filled
with shops, theaters, restaurants, and it has MacMillan
Wharf, where visitors can find whalewatch trips, charter
boats, a pirate museum, and the town’s fleet of
commercial fishing boats tied to the dock. It is this
central area where the crush of visitors can be most
felt during the summer. Crowds of residents, vacationers
and day-trippers fill the sidewalks and spill out onto
the street. The occasional car will slowly weave through
the crowds, but it is the pedestrians who rule the
street. The further out you go on either the east or
west ends of the street, the crowds thin out, as do the
businesses, and art galleries and a few small shops mix
with private homes and bed and breakfasts. We planned to
explore all of it, but the boat ride had made us hungry,
and we made a beeline for the Lobster Pot restaurant
near MacMillan Wharf.
The Lobster Pot is a local institution that’s been
around since the 1940s. It has two dining rooms that
look out at the harbor, and a menu that offers a huge
selection of seafood, along with beef and chicken
dishes. We stuck with seafood and gorged ourselves on
steamers, oysters, lobsters and seafood fettuccine.
Enjoying several rounds of good beer and a great view of
the harbor, we lingered much too long before we realized
the day was wasting away and we headed out to explore.
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