Our First Stop - Nauset Light Beach

Monday, August 1, 2010

Today was our first full day at the beach, and for our first beach outing, we chose Nauset Light Beach, one of two National Seashore beaches in Eastham. Nauset Light Beach is the smaller of the two (measured by parking lot), and so it tends to get slightly less crowded.

Like so many Cape Cod, ocean side beaches, Nauset Light Beach has suffered a great deal of erosion over the years. At this point, the parking lot can get no bigger because it now backs up on the road and there are residential properties on the other side of that road.

Nauset Light Beach is unique for several other reasons. As the name suggests, there is a functioning lighthouse at the top of the dune overlooking this beach. To save it from the

effects of erosion, the lighthouse was actually moved several hundred feet from the cliff face about 10 years ago. I should be safe there -- for at least another 40 years.

Because the parking lot for this beach is so small, it fills up very quickly. So you need to get here early. For Eastham home owners (i.e., taxpayers), however, there are about 60 parking spaces reserved in this lot just for us. This is really a great benefit. Although these spaces fill up too, they do not fill up as quickly, and we are easily able to get into the lot any time before 10:30am. Because we tend to get to the beach much earlier than that, this is not a huge issue for us, but it is still a nice

convenience to be able to fall back on.

The beach was very pretty today -- also very comfortable. It was sunny day, with a few clouds meandering about. The air temperature was in the low 80's. The water temperature was a very comfortable 62 degrees. For the Cape, that's actually warm! We spent a pleasant four hours at the beach and then headed home to take a refreshing dip in the pool.

For dinner tonight, we feasted on Lobster Risotto. Chris and I tried making this recipe a couple weeks ago at home, and we were slightly disappointed with the results. But we had

made a large quantity of lobster broth at the time and so we froze the remainder and brought it with us here to give it another try. The results today were much better. I think we hit upon the right combination of ingredients and we added a bit more salt to bring out the flavors.

With so many of us here who like to cook, I think we will eat very well at the beach this year.