We started our last day on Cape Cod at the Salt Pond Visitor Center in Eastham, which is Cape Cod National Seashore’s main visitor facility. We had signed up for the Salt Pond Paddle ranger program and also wanted to watch the film and check out the exhibits at the visitor center.

Salt Pond is a kettle pond, created by a depression in the earth when a large ice block that was left when glaciers receded melted. The depression filled when the water table rose and Salt Pond was originally a freshwater kettle pond. Eventually a narrow channel formed that connected the pond to Nauset Marsh and the Atlantic Ocean and now it is an estuary with a diverse community of marine life. All the equipment was provided for the paddle and we were led in a paddle around the pond by a ranger. We stopped once to get out and see what we could find in the pond. We saw several green crabs, which are an invasive species, and learned about one idea to mitigate their impact: using them in a whiskey. There is a distillery in NH that is using green crabs in a whiskey called Crab Trapper. A quote from the distillery: "Totally unexpectedly crab and whiskey do in fact go together — but who knew the unique flavor combination would create an all-natural and sustainable riff on Fireball? We certainly didn't!". Definitely a creative solution!

The coolest thing we saw in the pond was a horseshoe crab and we even had the chance to hold it. I think horseshoe crabs, which are actually more closely related to arachnids than crabs, are fascinating creatures - they are like a look into the past. They have been around for over 450 millions years, surviving all five mass extinctions, and have maintained their basic form over time - essentially living fossils. And they play an important part in medicine. Horseshoe crab blood can be used to detect endotoxins and test the safety of vaccines. Very cool!

We had the afternoon free and the last major thing on our list was to visit a beach on the oceanside. We decided to save Coast Guard Beach until the early evening when we could just drive there and park and not have to use the shuttle (and also avoid the crowds). In the meantime, we drove to Chatham to walk around and see the lighthouse. It’s interesting how different towns on the Cape have different vibes - we definitely preferred Provincetown. We finished our day with a lovely evening walk on Coast Guard Beach with the seals and piping plovers. We had been reading about both, so it was cool to see them. We definitely understood the shark dangers when we saw how close the seals were to the beach! And our day wasn’t completely finished until I had one last lobstah roll. We had a fantastic three days on Cape Cod!