Getting Out On The Water – Even If You Don’t Own A Boat

By Christopher Kazarian

With roughly 560 miles of coastline on Cape Cod, the ocean is never far away. It’s one of the main reasons millions of people visit here annually.

While there is a beauty to the Cape on land, it’s even better when experienced on the water. “So many people said it made their vacation, especially if they’re renting a house with a dock,” Jake Dewey said. “They can get on a boat and go to Sampsons Island or Egg Island or any one of the boaters-only access points on the Cape. For people on vacation, it is a total game changer.”

Dewey’s company, All Cape Boat Rentals, is one of several options people have for getting that unique perspective from the water. He started the company in 2006, when he purchased his first boat out of college, and wanted to offset the cost by renting it out for part of the summer.

“Before I knew it, it was booked the whole summer and I got a second boat and before I knew it that one was booked,” he said. And so, a business was launched that has grown in popularity ever since.

Customers can rent his company’s boats in two-hour, four-hour, eight-hour, daily and weekly increments. The hourly and daily rentals are out of Hyannis Harbor. “They are mostly Boston Whalers. The smallest is 16 feet and the biggest is 22 feet,” he said. “We also have Regulators, which is another form of a fishing boat, and the biggest is 26 feet and it has twin engines. And we rent pontoon boats out of there as well.”

The other option is private home rentals where he will deliver a boat to your house as long as it has access to a mooring, dock or boat slip. “Usually, people rent it from Saturday to Saturday and you have unlimited use of it. It’s like owning a boat for a week,” he said. “We go all over the Cape and have gone as far as Newport, Rhode Island, and the North Shore of Boston. We do a decent amount in Falmouth and Woods Hole.”

His season typically runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day but occasionally extends out a few weeks, depending on several factors, including demand and the weather.

“We’re hoping for a sunny, warm and not too windy summer so everyone can enjoy being on the water,” he said.

That is a similar goal for Mike Morrison and his team at RideAway Adventures, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. His company has three water-based locations where customers can rent a kayak or stand-up paddleboard—Popponesset Bay in Mashpee, Great Marsh in Sandwich and Lawrence Pond in Sandwich.

“We’ve chosen these locations because they are some of the best places to paddle on Cape Cod,” Morrison said.

RideAway also leads tours out of those locations, including a star-gazing adventure, a sunset trip, a beginner’s excursion and a nature-focused paddle. “They are kind of a unique experience,” he said of the tours. “Our big thing is we want people to connect to their natural surroundings. We want them to approach it through their senses—so touch, feel, smell and even taste. By getting them to connect with nature, we hope they’ll become ambassadors for the Cape environment and ecosystem.”

The tours are purposefully small, with a maximum of six participants to one guide. “This way they have a chance to talk to the guide and ask questions and have an intimate experience,” Morrison said.

At Lawrence Pond, which is situated on Camp Lyndon, Morrison said patrons have the opportunity to customize their experience to include a family reunion, birthday party, barbecue, picnic or cookout while mixing in water sports at their own pace. “We can have our staff there to get people on the water kayaking and paddleboarding,” he said. “We can organize really cool educational scavenger hunts and do lessons there. It’s really opened opportunities for us to create unique experiences for family events.”

RideAway will even deliver kayaks and paddleboards to your home as long as they are rented for more than 24 hours.

When asked why people should consider getting out on the water this summer, Morrison didn’t hesitate: “People always say, ‘I’m going to slow down and connect with nature.’ Once you actually do it and get out there, the difference it makes is enormous,” he said. “We are giving people the opportunity to slow down and see they are part of the bigger picture of something that is pretty important in protecting our natural environment.”

In Falmouth Harbor, Captain Chris Tietje and his wife Jane have been providing visitors and residents alike with a unique experience aboard the Liberté, a two-masted, gaff-rigged schooner that seats 49 passengers comfortably and features a full bar on board.

The Liberté sets sail three times a day, seven days a week, weather permitting, starting at the end of June and running through Labor Day. The ship can also be chartered privately for special occasions.  

“Everybody is there to have a good time,” Jane said, noting that the most popular trips are when the sun is setting over Vineyard Sound. “It gets you out on the water and you can’t beat that with a stick. And it’s also a whole different perspective for people. You get to see the Cape from the water, and you can appreciate different things like Falmouth Heights and sailing by lighthouses and all those big homes you can’t see from the road.”

It is that concept—viewing impressive homes from the water—that inspired E. Raymond Taylor along with brothers Richard and Robert Scudder to form Hyannis Harbor Tours—which eventually became Hy-Line Cruises—in 1962. That was two years after John F. Kennedy became the country’s 35th president, and there was a public fascination with him and his family. “We started more than 60 years ago doing sightseeing tours out to the Kennedy compound,” explained Hy-Line director of marketing Betsy Rich.

Today, Hy-Line still offers cruises of Hyannis Inner Harbor with insight into the history of the area and glimpses of local landmarks, including Great Island, Squaw Island, Gammon Light, the Kennedy Memorial and, of course, the Kennedy compound.

The company also runs fishing trips on a 60-passenger vessel during the summer. There’s a shorter 2½-hour excursion and a longer, four-hour trip where customers can catch a range of fish, including scup, tautog and sea bass. “We supply the bait which is free, and we have rod and reel rentals if people need it,” Rich said. “There’s also a bait shop on the dock if people are hardcore fishermen.”  

Perhaps Hy-Line’s most popular cruise runs out of Onset and allows customers to travel through the Cape Cod Canal. On Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, the trips include live music. There are also sightseeing, sunset cocktail and musical bingo cruises along the canal.

“At that particular location, we have people who live in Onset who can’t wait for opening day and come back every year to do it,” Rich said. “I love the canal and can’t say enough about those trips.

“Most people only have the perspective of traveling over the canal by vehicle,” Rich continued. “To be able to experience the canal by boat, letting someone else drive and cruise along it and under the bridges is a completely different experience.”