Cape Cod with the Kennedys

As my last note here was somewhat depressing, I decided to continue with the more cheerful Cape Cod theme.

We spent the spring's first perfectly sunny and warm weekend in Cape Cod, the hook-shaped peninsula south of Boston. Going there already in March was actually a great idea; off-season, most places were still closed but Provincetown's main street was nicely calm. A park ranger later told us that in summer, it might take even two hours just to drive through the town (and I'm talking about a town of around 3000 inhabitants).

Cape Cod has been a famous travel destination since the Kennedys spent their holidays here. John F. Kennedy actually initiated the Cape Cod National Seashore protecting around 60 km of Cape Cod’s Atlantic coast, and his son JFK jr. died a decade ago in a plane crash in Martha’s Vineyard, an island next to Cape Cod. Nowadays, you don't need to be a prominent socialite to spend your summer holidays here; around 2 million visitors block the beaches and roads alike every year.

Cape Cod's coast is lined with beautiful long beaches and the nature alters between arid dunes and sea taking over the swamps. Artists praise the sun light as more intense, more blue, just like in Southern France. Cape Cod's Cezanne is of course Edward Hopper who spent 40 summers painting in his studio here. Indeed, the landscape feels somehow familiar: light houses, cottages, and the treeless land. The colour of the sky is "hopperian" and you have a sudden urge to paint as well. And there must be demand for the art as Provincetown's main street is packed with dozens of art galleries.

Provincetown is known for its art and gay scene (the first gay bar in the USA was actually opened here) but its amazing fudge industry has not received the attention it deserves. Forget about those boring vanilla or rhum flavored fudges, I'm talking about cranberry-walnut or smarties-marshmallow fudges...

Whale Watching

That week wasn’t very good for sea animals.

Photo: The Humane Society of the United States.

On our way to Montreal we read that the Canadian government was protesting against EU’s decision to ban seal imports. The EU thinks that killing baby seals is inhumane: during a couple of weeks in the springtime, almost four hundred thousand seals (usually less than 3 months old) are killed in Canada in the largest hunt of marine mammals in the world.

Photo: Encyclopedia Britannica's Advocacy for Animals.

Canada thinks the EU is being silly and to prove its point, the government organized a seal dinner ­– this action being as mature as the baby seals they were eating. Here libreal leader Michael Ignatieff is eating seal appetizers. Even he doesn't seem to be enjoying.

Photo: Reuters.

Had I known more about the issue earlier, I would have never bought that Canadian lobster in Cape Cod. While I have to admit that my first lobster ever was delicious I’ll be boycotting Canadian sea food until the slaughtering stops. If you want to sign a petition against seal hunting, go to Humane Society International.

Canada was equally cruel against the other cute white animal, polar bear, in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). In the same convention, Japan’s commitment lead to the refusal to protect bluefin tuna (the proposal for protection was supported by the EU and the USA among others). Bluefin stocks have fallen by 80 percent over the last 40 years in the Atlantic Ocean and the EU had agreed to ban trade on bluefin tuna earlier this March. So, Japan boycott, anyone??

Japan also defeated the protection of sharks in the convention. Sharks represent the greatest share of threatened marine species but only three out of 50 vulnerable or endangered shark species are protected internationally. 73 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins. Shark fins are considered as a delicacy in China that is the biggest consumer of sharks in the world. So, let’s add China to our boycott list (and even if you don’t care about sharks, you can add it for some other reasons; maybe protecting tigers is your thing!).

All in all, not very successful meeting for marine creatures, in fact it was more like a Tragedy of the Oceans. Despite all these sad news, we were lucky in Cape Cod when it comes to marine life. We were able to observe a troop of endangered North Atlantic right whales from a beach close to Provincetown. Around 60 whales have been spotted there and that’s good news since last year there were much fewer whales around this time of the year. We were indeed fortunate to see them because there exist only 400 whales of this specific species in the planet. And the sunset was gorgeous as well!