The Atlantis of Cape Cod Has New Residents

Most of the 15 towns of the 65 mile long arm of sand that is Cape Cod, have beaches on two separate oceans.  

Cape Cod Bay on the North Side washes up on the shores of the communities from Sandwich to Provincetown, at the end of the earth.

 On the South Side is Nantucket Sound which runs from Hyannis to Provincetown.  The south side waters are always several degrees warmer than the North Side, which is why the snarky sharks that visit Cape Cod usually stay in the Sound and don’t favor the Bay – up to now.

By land you enter the Island of Cape Cod  

by crossing the Bourne Bridge by car

 or by train on the CC Railroad Bridge in the background.  

New research shows that the ‘snarks’ are gliding through the waters of outer Cape Cod Bay and may be ranging towards the mid-cape to cruise the waters of Dennis, Yarmouth and even Barnstable.

In the third week of July (in the Summer of '19), researchers tagged three more sharks off the outer coast of Cape Cod (Wellfleet and Truro), making it an even dozen this season that have been marked. 

An official working with the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy said that this is the highest number of sharks tagged this early in the season.

Last summer the group wrapped up a five year shark population survey and is currently working on finding data on the predatory nature of the snarky beasts

Though there have been no shark attacks on Cape this season, there have been many sightings.  In fact just this week the research team tagged a shark on Billingsgate Shoal.  It’s the first time the team has set up its operation on the North side, and they found a shark on the first try.

There have been no shark attacks thus far in 2019, but last year a swimmer died from a shark attack at a beach in Wellfleet.  This summer on three separate occasions police have found a ‘fake leg’ at the beach, apparently left as a ‘sick’ joke.  

Billingsgate Shoal is an area in Cape Cod bay that is known as the Atlantis of Cape Cod, for the area once was an inhabited island, which sank into the ocean.  The island’s village was a part of the town of Eastham.  It was a whaling and fishing community. 

Billingsgate Island circa 1910, just before it sank

Though its lighthouse, taverns, stores and homes are long gone, at low tide, the shoal rises above the water and can be accessed by boaters who use the area for picnics and shell-fishing. 

Your great, great, great grand-dad floated past this lighthouse in the late 1800s, if he was a sailor in Cape Cod Bay

 Apparently the shoal now has a new use….an area for the ‘snarks’ to do their seal hunting.

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