The Second Week of August on Cape Ann
August is at its fullest right now. Here's how to spend the week without fighting for a parking spot.
By Dotti Maguire
Where we are in the summer
This is the week the light starts to change. You might not notice it at the beach at noon, but by seven in the evening the sun is lower than it was in July, the shadows are longer on the water, and the harbor takes on that gold color that photographers wait all year for. We still have real summer weeks ahead. Labor Day is almost a month off. But August has a different quality than July, quieter somehow even when it's crowded, and this second full week is one of our favorites.
Here is what we'd tell a friend arriving Monday.
Beach strategy for a busy week
August weekends are the peak of the peak. If you're here through Sunday, treat the weekdays as your real beach days. Good Harbor and Wingaersheek both fill their lots by mid-morning on Saturday and Sunday, and the resident sticker system means non-residents get turned away once capacity hits. Go Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Go early if you want the lot, or go after 3pm when the morning crowd has packed up and the light is softer anyway.
Low tide this week runs late morning into early afternoon, which is the good scenario. Wingaersheek at low tide is the version of Wingaersheek people remember: sandbars all the way out, warm shallow water, kids walking to what looks like the horizon. Check the tide chart before you commit to a beach day and you'll thank yourself.
If both big beaches are full, Half Moon and Cressy's are smaller options, and the rocky beaches along Rockport's back shore give you swimming without the parking war.
Whale watching is still on
Mid-August is a strong stretch for whale sightings on Stellwagen Bank. The humpbacks are feeding, the water is warm, and the trips out of Gloucester Harbor have been coming back with good reports. Cape Ann Whale Watch and 7 Seas both run afternoon boats. Book a day ahead this week, not the morning of. Bring a layer even when it's 85 on land. It's a different climate ten miles offshore.
A quieter Tuesday or Wednesday
If you want to give yourself a day that isn't beach-centric, here is a route we like this week.
Start with coffee somewhere unhurried. Pleasant Street Tea Co. or Lone Gull both work for a slow morning. Then Hammond Castle, which is open through mid-November and is genuinely strange and wonderful, a stone castle a millionaire inventor built on the water in the 1920s. Give it an hour and a half. Walk the grounds after.
From there, head to lunch. A cup of chowder and a lobster roll at any of the working seafood spots on the harbor is the correct move. Afternoon: the Cape Ann Museum downtown, reopened at the end of June after its renovation and worth a slow look. If the weather is cooperating, end the day at Halibut Point with a picnic, watching the sun drop toward the water off the north shore.
That's a full day and none of it involves sitting in beach traffic.
Rockport this week
Bearskin Neck in August is Bearskin Neck in August. It will be busy. Go in the morning before 11 or after 5, and you'll actually be able to walk. Tuck's Candy is worth the stop for saltwater taffy pulled on the premises. Roy Moore's for a lobster on the dock is one of those things you should do at least once per summer even if you live here.
The Rockport Farmers Market is running Saturday 9 to 1 at Harvey Park. Peak tomato season is starting. Get corn, get tomatoes, get whatever the stone fruit person has.
Shalin Liu has programming this week worth checking. The room itself, with the window behind the stage looking straight out at the Atlantic, is one of the best small halls in New England.
Evenings
Sunset this week is around 7:50pm and dropping by about a minute a day. Eastern Point at dusk is the classic move: the breakwater walk out to the light, harbor on one side, open ocean on the other. Wear real shoes. The granite is uneven and slippery in spots.
Dinner reservations are tight this week everywhere. If you don't have a plan by Wednesday for a weekend meal, either call now or plan to walk in early (5 or 5:30) or late (after 8:30). The counter seats at the raw bars are your friend for walk-in.
One quiet suggestion
Wake up early one morning this week, before 6. Get coffee to go. Drive out to Halibut Point or the back shore in Rockport or the far end of Good Harbor. Sit with it for an hour. This is the version of Cape Ann most visitors never see, and it's the one we'd trade the rest for.
