Where We Went

Whydah Pirate Museum. This came as a recommendation from my boss, and Josh was all excited when I mentioned during our planning that there was a pirate museum nearby. I was a little skeptical, especially when I saw the outside of the building (I think my exact words were “This looks a bit sketch”), but I was actually pleasantly surprised.

You can learn more about the history of the Whydah on its website (if you’re interested), but the museum is home to thousands of items from the Whydah, which was originally a slave ship out of London, and houses the largest collection of pirate artifacts recovered from a single shipwreck anywhere in the world. The Whydah was captured by pirates in the central Bahamas and ultimately wrecked in April 1717 off the coast of Cape Cod. The boat wreck was discovered in 1984, and the museum opened in 2016.

The artifacts on display in the museum include canons, wooden guns, jewelry, medical supplies, coins, dinnerware, and more—everything was recovered from the shipwreck itself. There’s also an on-site conversation lab where you can see the process of how they remove the artifacts from large chunks of sand/ocean floor that’s hardened over 300 years. Since the artifacts were encased in the sand and in salt water for so long, they have to keep the chunks in water or constantly spray them with water so that they don’t dry up.

It took us about an hour to walk through the entire museum, and in the end, I’m glad we went. I thought it was actually pretty cool.

What We Ate + Drank

Breakfast: Captain Baker Donut Shop. It’s good that we went there on our last day or else we probably would have gone there every morning for breakfast. 

Josh and I split three donuts: birthday, berry explosion, and purple cow. SO SO good. They’re made (or rather decorated) right as you order them, and you can watch the employees dip the donuts behind the counter. The donuts reminded us of the ones we had in Cleveland at Goldie’s Donuts.

Whenever we go back to the Cape, this will definitely be on our repeat visit list.

Lunch: Jersey Mike’s. Our one chain restaurant visit on the trip since it was on our way out of the Cape. We wanted something quick and easy since we were leaving around 12:30 p.m.

Overall Notes

I absolutely loved our time in Cape Cod and was actually really sad to leave on Friday. Because I am who I am, I was nervous to go on this trip because I wanted to do ALL OF THE THINGS, and Josh had to keep telling me we were doing what we were interested in, and we can always go back in the future. The one thing I am sad that we missed is a Cape Cod League baseball game. The schedule doesn’t start until this weekend, or else we definitely would have gone to a game.

(The one funny, or rather sort of annoying, thing we kept encountering was road construction. No matter where we went, there was some sort of delay or one lane road for construction. We joked afterward that we should have taken pictures of the work road and captioned it, “Go to the Cape, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.)

This trip felt very much like our Maine trips over the past few summers, where we go exploring a bit during the day but also have time to relax and hang out. We lucked out with the weather: it never rained and was mostly sunny and in the 70s; the only day that was really warm was Thursday, when we went to P-town. Also, by going in early June, we missed the Memorial Day craziness and also missed when schools get out and families travel more. Nothing was super busy where we went, and the service/food times at all of the restaurants were pretty good.

I’ve been told that there’s a chance we could go back to the Cape next June for our weekly vacation… and I won’t say no to that. Fingers crossed! (And hopefully we can book the same Airbnb cottage!)