Guided Discovery: Cape Cod Adventures: Snowmobiles on the Bass River

My soon-to-be-son-in-law, Scott, and my daughter, Lesley, spend their summers renting jet skis (aka snowmobiles) along with entertaining the locals with banana boat rides. They operate the business out of the Lighthouse Inn in West Dennis. Opening day is the day after schools closes in RI and Mass.

Scott standing in front of the Lighthouse Inn

However, this year the Lighthouse Inn was hosting Saturday weddings thus delaying opening day until Sunday. This prompted Lesley to suggest that she and I should cruise the Bass River on a pair of jet skis while Scott babysits Amelia Myrna (my granddaughter). I thought this was a great idea especially since most of the river is a no wake zone.

Also great was getting to spend the weekend with Amelia Myrna.

Amelia at 20 months making a very narrow tower

Explanatory Note: I found jet skiing on Lake Michigan not to be much fun especially for someone with back (disc) problems. For starters the lake has too many rough days. Even when the water should be relatively calm due to low winds it's often rough due to weekend boaters.

The Bass River, an estuary, is located in South Yarmouth Massachusetts and forms a border between the towns of Yarmouth and Dennis. The south end opens to Nantucket Sound and goes north crossing Route 28 (main east west route) 5 miles deep into the Cape.

Bass River opening to Nantucket Sound

Navigable portion of the Bass River heading north toward Cape Cod Bay (at the top of the photo)

The Bass River's brackish northwestern end flows into Follins Pond and from there winding further north as a brook to Mill Pond and finally as an underground stream that nearly bisects Cape Cod. It was once strongly considered as the route (shown in red) for what is now the Cape Cod Canal (shown in yellow).

Saturday, June 5, proved to be the perfect day with clear skies and temperatures in the mid 70s. We started our adventure at around 11:00 AM with the launch of the jet skies at a launch ramp across from the Bass River Yacht Club.

Jet skies on a tandem trailer await our arrival

Across from the launch ramp was the Bass River Yacht Club

Launching

Off we went crossing under Route 28 and heading north. The river is well marked although my navigation was definitely off that morning as I made wrong turn following a secondary channel into Grand Cover. Having discovered my error we backtracked to the main channel and headed north. We crossed under Route 6 (the northern east west highway) into Kelley's Bay and finally into Follins Pond. Most of our trip was at less that 5 MPH due to the no wake zones. However, there were sections where we could run at speed. I got the snowmobile up to 50 MPH (on flat water). It was great fun.

Lesley poses for a photo op on Follins Pond

An interesting A-Frame tucked away in the woods on Follins Pond

Crossing under Route 28's two bridges on the return trip

Remains of a bridge (with a wicked current) just south of Route 28

Scott and Amelia (hard to see) waving to us with a prominent landmark behind them

It was now around 2:00 PM as we passed Scott and Amelia. We had been on the skies for about 3 hours (read as in the sun). The question was whether to pack it in or head further south explore Weir Creek. We opted to keep going south into Weir Creek.

Weir Creek proved to be very interesting. It runs east from the Bass River along a spit of land that separates it from Nantucket Sound. What made this area particularly interesting were a series of man-made canals running along the north side of the creek making this area a mini (OK very mini) Fort Lauderdale. The photos below are of the homes (definitely upscale) and canals on Weir Creek.