Chatham Lighthouse sits about a mile down Main Street, just outside of Chatham, Massachusetts. It perches on a cliff overlooking the approaches to Chatham harbor. The light was built in 1881; one of a set of twin lighthouses, and part of the third set of twin lighthouses in Chatham. The original lights, as well as their replacements, slid into the ocean as the cliff slowly eroded away. In 1923, one light was moved up-cape to Nauset to replace a set of aging triple lights. Chatham light was taken over by the Coast Guard in 1939 and is still an active Coast Guard station.
Coasties were known on the Cape as Hammerheads. They got the name from an elite military unit set up during the days of Prohibition. Hammerheads went after rumrunners smuggling liquor from Canada, smashing contraband whiskey barrels with sledge hammers and spilling the contents overboard, much to the delight of the local lobster population.
Pat and I drove to the lighthouse after a leisurely stroll through the town. We were taking in the view from the cliff top and contemplating a trudge down the wooden stairs to the beach when a couple came past and asked if we had seen the seals. Really? Where? They had lunched up the road and had seen seals sporting in the channel. I scanned the area with my binoculars and came up with nothing. Then I checked out the tiny island off the point. No bigger than a sandbar, it looked covered with logs. Which moved. Eureka. I dug out the 20x spotting scope that Pat had me bring along (thanks, Pat) and focused in. The sandbar was wall-to-wall seals. Gray seals the size of sofa beds along with smaller, lighter harbor seals lay cheek by jowl on the beach looking for all the world like a crowd of summer sunbathers. I half expected them to be passing the Coppertone. I decided to hike out to the point to see if I could get some pictures. Pat elected to stay on the cliff top with the scope. She asked anyone who passed by if they wanted to see the seals; most people were blase about it until they got their eye to the lens. When I got to the bottom of the stairs and looked back up, Pat was doing a land-office business - she could have sold tickets. Pat says she didn't offer a look to the bikers who roared up soon after I left. Too bad, she could have swapped a view of the seals for some free legal or accounting advice.
Local fishermen call Gray seals “horseheads” from their long rounded heads that poke out of the water to stare at you with huge soulful puppy eyes.
Grays and the smaller harbor seals have ballooned in population in the past 30 years until their numbers are approaching 6000 along the Cape. With the increase in the seal populations, have come (cue up scary music here…Da Dum…Da Dum..) their major predator, the Great White Shark. There have been reports of shark attacks on seals off Chatham for several years and the occasional seal carcass washes up showing half-moon bite marks the diameter of garbage can lids. A Great White, estimated to be 14 feet long, was observed killing and eating a seal just off the beach not 2 months ago. Chatham Town has issued an “advisory” telling people not to swim with seals. It seems to me that swimming with an animal possessing a head the size of a grizzly bear’s with teeth to match, is only slightly less foolhardy than swimming with an animal possessing a head the size of a grizzly bear’s with teeth to match AND knowing that something with the firepower to eat it may be nearby. The good news is that Great Whites rarely attack humans; when they do, it is usually a case of mistaken identity - a swimmer or surfer on a board looks an awful lot like a seal on the surface. Seals have a thick layer of blubber (read: calories) that the shark can detect when it hits. Humans are too skinny and not worth the effort to digest; a shark will spit you (or whatever part of you it took off) back out. The bad news is that the first bite is enough to ruin your day.
Pat and I drove back to the lighthouse in the evening after a good seafood dinner in a local restaurant. Chatham Light sent its double beams out into a clear black night, broken only by the lights of passing cars on the main road. The Milky Way was visible, with the Pleiades hovering, and Orion climbing over the horizon like a fat man getting out of the tub. The cries of migrating shorebirds punctuated the darkness over the empty beach with summer past and a north wind rising.
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