The Shoulder Week Before Memorial Day

There is a particular kind of week we get on Cape Ann right now, and it is worth naming. The trees are fully out. The water is no longer painful to touch. The whale boats are running. But the summer crowd has not arrived. Memorial Day is Monday, May 25, 2026, eleven days from today, and until then we have the place mostly to ourselves.

If you are staying with us this week, you have lucked into the best math of the year: summer weather, off-season pace. Here is what we would do with it.

Walk Bearskin Neck on a weekday morning

Most of the shops on Bearskin Neck are open by now, the candy shop and the galleries and the lobster places out at the end. But the foot traffic is light enough that you can actually stop and look at things. Go on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning. Get a coffee and a donut at the spot next to the harbor, walk out past the granite to where the breakwater starts, and turn around when you feel like it. In July this same walk is shoulder-to-shoulder. This week it is not.

Tuck's Candy Factory is open. Roy Moore Lobster Company is open for a roll on a milk crate. The Lobster Pool out at Folly Cove (not on the Neck, but a short drive) opened for the season last month and is the kind of place where you order at a window and eat looking at the water.

Get on a boat

Cape Ann Whale Watch started running on Saturday, May 2, 2026, and 7 Seas is sailing too. May is one of the better months for whale activity because the feed is heavy and the boats are not crowded. You can usually get a seat on the rail. Bring more layers than you think you need. It is always at least ten degrees colder out there than it is in the parking lot, and the wind does not care that it is technically spring.

If you would rather stay closer to shore, Beauport Cruiselines is running harbor tours, and the schooner Ardelle starts her season this month out of Maritime Gloucester. A two-hour sail at the end of the day, with the light going long, is hard to beat.

The trails are dry

The Dogtown trails get muddy in April and impossible after a wet week. By mid-May they have firmed up. You can park at the Dogtown Road entrance and wander for as long as you want, or as long as you can keep track of the blazes. Bring a real map or download one before you go. Cell service is unreliable in there and the woods do not care that you have plans.

Halibut Point in Rockport is the other obvious move. The quarry, the tide pools, the view to Mount Agamenticus in Maine on a clear day. It is busier than Dogtown but never crowded on a weekday this time of year.

Eat without a wait

This is the last week before reservations start to matter. Tonno can usually seat you. Franklin Cape Ann has tables. Causeway will still have a line on a Saturday night because Causeway always has a line, but the rest of the week is fine. If you have been wanting to try the oyster bar at 1606 inside the Beauport Hotel, or sit at the counter at Short and Main for pizza and a few oysters, this is the week.

For a casual lunch, Woodman's of Essex is fully into its season, and J.T. Farnham's and Essex Seafood are both running. The clam plates have not yet hit their July prices. We are not saying they are cheap. We are saying they are less expensive than they will be in six weeks.

Hammond Castle is open again

The castle reopened for the 2026 season on Tuesday, April 28, 2026 and will run through November 16. Two weeks in, the staff is settled, the gardens are coming in, and the tours are not yet booking up the way they will once school is out. It is a strange and wonderful building and it pairs well with a walk along the Magnolia shore afterward.

The light

We end most of these posts talking about the light, because the light is the thing. In mid-May it stays usable until almost 8 p.m. You can have dinner at six, walk to the water at seven, and still catch the sun going down behind the houses on the west side of the harbor. Pick a granite ledge. Sit on it. That is the assignment.

Next week we will start looking ahead to Memorial Day weekend and what opens with it. This week, the assignment is to enjoy the quiet before it goes.