Actually we and then I tried to visit these three lights on two different days. They are all along the very end of the Cape, beyond Provincetown itself and not easy to reach. Race Point light is no longer functional as a lighthouse, it’s become a B&B, as have the two houses next to it. We started to walk the 2+ miles to reach it on an incredibly windy day. The good thing about the wind, apart from its cooling effect, was that it kept the green flies away. The walk is down a fire road lined with short pine trees, wild flowers and bushes for about a mile, and then in the open through a marshy area full of lovely swaying marshy green grasses. By the time we were getting close and would have turned onto the sandbar behind the beach where the lighthouse lay another half mile or so away, the wind was so strong (and there had been serious thunderstorm warnings which of course never came to anything) that we got worried we’d be blown away and turned back.
Unfortunately, my photos that day were on my iPhone, which I discovered just cannot cope with distance. They are so bad that I’m too embarrassed to show them. Blurry, you can barely see the lighthouse, and the beauty of the surrounding area is lost completely.
So today I tried again from another angle. I walked across the dike you can see in this photo of huge rocks, water on both sides, hoping to get all the way across, and then in the middle of the dike, the stones started being difficult to cross and I got scared and turned back. For a while I was behind two women a bit younger than me, also cautious, but we helped and chivvied each other to keep going. Then the one in front refused to go further, she was just too unsure of her footing. I wasn’t about to go further on my own at that stage, so I turned back with them. Damn! Some people just hopped across.
Can you see the light to the right of the dike, that dot all the way across the water? Here is another view that shows how lovely the marshes are with the lighthouse a bit larger:
And here is one of the other two lights, Wood End light, even further away and blurry in the enlarged version of the photo here. Not sure how to get closer just now. May try it another time.
As for Long light, it was just too far away to get a photo at all. I’m going to check out the water taxis tomorrow if the weather is nice. Still, I think I’ve got lots more to show than I had before these trips. Shall I drive down to the Chatham light too? Now that is a long long drive. To the tip of the elbow of the Cape. Watch this space!!