The Seals of Great Point

FromA Cape Cod Notebook

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The Seals of Great Point

FromA Cape Cod Notebook

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Length:

3 minutes

Released:

Feb 19, 2019

Format:

Podcast episode

Description

The first thing you notice about Nantucket’s colony of grey seals is the smell. You smell them before you see them. And when they look at you, with a strange mammalian sort of recognition, you realize they must be able to smell you , too.

Released:

Feb 19, 2019

Format:

Podcast episode

Titles in the series (20)

A nature writer living in Wellfleet, Robert Finch has written about Cape Cod for more than forty years. He is the author of nine books of essays. A Cape Cod Notebook airs weekly on WCAI, the NPR station for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and the South Coast. In both 2006 and 2013, the series won the New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.

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A Sandy, Shifting Place: I tend to think of Nantucket as this place that is constantly shifting, and in many ways it is. People come and go, drift with the seasons and the tides. Our population ebbs and flows from some 17,000 in the off season to close to 50,000 in the summer. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Seals of Great Point: The first thing you notice about Nantucket’s colony of grey seals is the smell. You smell them before you see them. And when they look at you, with a strange mammalian sort of recognition, you realize they must be able to smell you , too. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Winter Clamming Digs Up Many Rewards: The sun was low in the horizon when I arrived at Tashmoo Pond. The temperature was above average for a February day. Mid-forties I guessed. One week earlier, it had been in the teens. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Life Goes On: A line of poetry passed through my mind yesterday, about a landscape so pure, so cold and quiet, that one could “feel the shadow of the hawk’s wing pass over the land.” I felt that same silence of a hawk at the moment when all the busy chatter, the by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
The Gifts That Ride in the Waves: I was driving through the rain the other evening on Cliff Road, searching for turnoff to Hinkley Lane, straining to see through my sandblasted windshield and the fog. For a minute I imagined Nantucket as a lost city, nestled there at the bottom of the sea by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Be at Home Wherever You Are: I have often wondered how our year-round fauna and flora manage to withstand the extremes of weather that a Cape Cod year comprises: temperatures at or below freezing at one end and sweltering heat in the 90s at the other. I know some of the physiological by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
An Appreciation of Daffodils: I never thought about daffodils very much before I `moved to Martha’s Vineyard. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Sand Jointweed, a Tiny Miracle: I sing the praises of the lowly Sand Jointweed ( Polygonella articulata ). It grows primarily in the sandy area north of the Old Colony Nature Trail, in the East End of Provincetown, right where my dog and I hike every day. It is lowly- just a few inches by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Small White Perch, Big Smile: One of the pleasures of living on Martha’s Vineyard is that spring arrives in tangible ways. You hear it and you taste it. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Intimacy of Radio: Radio is magic. If you are listening to these words you most likely agree. But why? Why is radio such a magical medium? It may have something to do with the fact that you must bring more of yourself to it: unlike television, there is no picture. So you by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Season's First Dip: It can hardly be called a swim, that first plunge into the ocean in early spring. I suppose dip is the best description--or dunk, like one of those tanks at a county fair where somebody hurls a ball at a button and the bottom drops out from under you, and by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Call of Gulls: I was lying in bed, between dreams, wide awake. It was late - or early - 3:35 AM. The house was still (no, not even a mouse…), the woods were quiet - the cricket din excepted. No street noise, nothing from Route 6. I lie awake. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Pondering Pine Trees: It is spring now, and raining, but just a couple of weeks ago, at the very end of March, I was hiking in the hilly woods of western Massachusetts, and there was still a couple feet of snow. by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Why a Garage is Not a Barn: “Mom, where’s the screwdriver?” my daughter asks. “In the barn,” I reply. Brief silence. “You mean the garage?” “Yeah, the garage. Whatever.” by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Roadside Robin: It was only for an instant, a second, a microsecond- a flash. I was driving north on Rt. 28, leaving Woods Hole and headed back to Provincetown, hurtling down the highway at perhaps 45 miles per hour. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Summer Jobs: I’ve always thought of getting a job in the summer on Cape Cod a bit like a bear catching salmon running upstream--all you had to do was stick your hand out and grab one. Help wanted signs dot the Cape from Provincetown to the Bridge, and with a season so by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
A Special Place and a Favorite Fishing Spot: This is a story about memory and remembrance. And, because this is Cape Cod, fishing. In the 1970s, my in-laws owned a house on Bass River. One day, probably around 1975, when my husband and I were walking our dogs along the shore, I glanced up at the by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Take It or Leave It: The landfill is one of three hubs on which life on Nantucket rotates around--the post office and the grocery store the two others. Stay long enough at any of the three and you are sure to run into everyone you know, including maybe some you are trying to by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Fleeting Spring: It is a truism that by the time we notice spring it is essentially over. by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Mysterious Gnomes on 6A: There are gnomes hiding on Route 6A. And before you think I’m a little too far into the chardonnay, let me reassure you that I know they are not real. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen

More Episodes from A Cape Cod Notebook

Skip carousel

The Call of Gulls: I was lying in bed, between dreams, wide awake. It was late - or early - 3:35 AM. The house was still (no, not even a mouse…), the woods were quiet - the cricket din excepted. No street noise, nothing from Route 6. I lie awake. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Mysterious Gnomes on 6A: There are gnomes hiding on Route 6A. And before you think I’m a little too far into the chardonnay, let me reassure you that I know they are not real. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Roadside Robin: It was only for an instant, a second, a microsecond- a flash. I was driving north on Rt. 28, leaving Woods Hole and headed back to Provincetown, hurtling down the highway at perhaps 45 miles per hour. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Take It or Leave It: The landfill is one of three hubs on which life on Nantucket rotates around--the post office and the grocery store the two others. Stay long enough at any of the three and you are sure to run into everyone you know, including maybe some you are trying to by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Fleeting Spring: It is a truism that by the time we notice spring it is essentially over. by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
A Special Place and a Favorite Fishing Spot: This is a story about memory and remembrance. And, because this is Cape Cod, fishing. In the 1970s, my in-laws owned a house on Bass River. One day, probably around 1975, when my husband and I were walking our dogs along the shore, I glanced up at the by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Summer Jobs: I’ve always thought of getting a job in the summer on Cape Cod a bit like a bear catching salmon running upstream--all you had to do was stick your hand out and grab one. Help wanted signs dot the Cape from Provincetown to the Bridge, and with a season so by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Pondering Pine Trees: It is spring now, and raining, but just a couple of weeks ago, at the very end of March, I was hiking in the hilly woods of western Massachusetts, and there was still a couple feet of snow. by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Why a Garage is Not a Barn: “Mom, where’s the screwdriver?” my daughter asks. “In the barn,” I reply. Brief silence. “You mean the garage?” “Yeah, the garage. Whatever.” by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
An Appreciation of Daffodils: I never thought about daffodils very much before I `moved to Martha’s Vineyard. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Intimacy of Radio: Radio is magic. If you are listening to these words you most likely agree. But why? Why is radio such a magical medium? It may have something to do with the fact that you must bring more of yourself to it: unlike television, there is no picture. So you by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Season's First Dip: It can hardly be called a swim, that first plunge into the ocean in early spring. I suppose dip is the best description--or dunk, like one of those tanks at a county fair where somebody hurls a ball at a button and the bottom drops out from under you, and by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Sand Jointweed, a Tiny Miracle: I sing the praises of the lowly Sand Jointweed ( Polygonella articulata ). It grows primarily in the sandy area north of the Old Colony Nature Trail, in the East End of Provincetown, right where my dog and I hike every day. It is lowly- just a few inches by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Small White Perch, Big Smile: One of the pleasures of living on Martha’s Vineyard is that spring arrives in tangible ways. You hear it and you taste it. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
The Gifts That Ride in the Waves: I was driving through the rain the other evening on Cliff Road, searching for turnoff to Hinkley Lane, straining to see through my sandblasted windshield and the fog. For a minute I imagined Nantucket as a lost city, nestled there at the bottom of the sea by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
Be at Home Wherever You Are: I have often wondered how our year-round fauna and flora manage to withstand the extremes of weather that a Cape Cod year comprises: temperatures at or below freezing at one end and sweltering heat in the 90s at the other. I know some of the physiological by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen
A Sandy, Shifting Place: I tend to think of Nantucket as this place that is constantly shifting, and in many ways it is. People come and go, drift with the seasons and the tides. Our population ebbs and flows from some 17,000 in the off season to close to 50,000 in the summer. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Winter Clamming Digs Up Many Rewards: The sun was low in the horizon when I arrived at Tashmoo Pond. The temperature was above average for a February day. Mid-forties I guessed. One week earlier, it had been in the teens. by A Cape Cod Notebook
3 min listen
Life Goes On: A line of poetry passed through my mind yesterday, about a landscape so pure, so cold and quiet, that one could “feel the shadow of the hawk’s wing pass over the land.” I felt that same silence of a hawk at the moment when all the busy chatter, the by A Cape Cod Notebook
4 min listen

Discover this podcast and so much more

The Seals of Great Point

The Seals of Great Point

Description

Titles in the series (20)

More Episodes from A Cape Cod Notebook