Dawn’s Ride to Dunes

Camera heavy on my shoulder, I quietly leave the apartment at 4:00 a.m. on a chilled winter’s morning. Even the wintering birds are still asleep, the wind outsinging them but shut out by car windows.

It’s a restless weekend, with doubts and boredom and uneasiness. The dunes won’t leave me alone until I go to them; it’s better than dwelling on everything else.

The towns are hibernating yet the backroads and side roads are comfortable but Route 6 still looms. But on February morning with night slowly bleeding out to dawn, it’s near empty and I can have the world.

Two lanes merge to one, an unsettling divider of yellow poles separating me from the one other driver leaving from where I am going; trees to either of side us closing us in.

There are no lamp posts here but there are flashing lights of blue and red. A car is pulled over, but their lights are still off inside. It’s a narrow path between the yellow spikes and cars perched on the subtle slope. The lights fade in my rearview mirror and I’m again reliant on my headlights until I finally reach town.

“Turn right.” The little GPS device startles me. The drive to this point already feels like a different day. The sky is now a dusty periwinkle, the structures and roads shadows in greyscale cast in warm orange from sodium vapor lights. Windows rolled down, the air is cold but the salt is strong and welcoming.

Some light creeps into the still dim sky, slowly bringing golds and reds and white. Turning onto the road, the marsh is silhouetted against the aggressive yellows and reds from the rising sun in contrast with the still lingering night. As I drive along the unceasing wetlands, horizon turns into a lightening gradient as I try to outdrive the sunrise but fail wonderfully. The reds give way to pinks and the yellows give way to the palest of blues until the morning sky finally arrives just as I pull up to the mountains of dunes.

All alone at first morning after a ride of near empty roads, the liminality of the space before and the space here can’t be ignored. The roads bring us to and away from home, but they also can bring us to spaces where one place merges into another. The marsh transitions the firm land to the escaping sands which slide into crashing waves which gives and takes protection to the littoral zone housing creatures adapted to part time aquatic life. I am at the edge of the world, the last person, unclear of what could come next in an ever-changing environment, and willing to get lost to find nothing and everything.

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If you wish to explore this place, I went to the Cape Cod National Seashore through a Provincetown entrance. The national seashore was established in 1961, an Atlantic coastal pine barrens ecoregion running 60 miles with 43,607 acres beaches, dunes, woods, ponds, and salt marshes from heavy development. Mushroom foraging is allowed, hunting is allowed - but you must check the rules first.

Piping plovers, a federally endangered bird, migrates to this area in spring and stay through October, nesting and raising chicks. Be mindful where you step and mind the signs marking where their nesting areas are. There are also state endangered birds, the roseate tern and least tern. Follow the same rules and leave them all be. Bring a camera or binoculars.

Do not approach seals because they are not as friendly as you may think and interaction can injure you and also make you sick, passing on mycoplasma or Erysipelothrix rhusiopanthiae - zoonotic diseases. Their presence signals a great white shark may be nearby, which won’t go out of their way to bite you but easily could. We don’t taste good to these sharks, but their vision is poor and we get in the way.

When walking on the dunes, stick to the trails because while the vegetation is capable of loosely holding the dunes together it is still fragile.

All ecosystems are a balancing act, but it’s especially apparent on the coast and the closer you get to the sea. Enjoy the space, but regard it as a home rather than a playscape.