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A Cape Cod Notebook can be heard every Tuesday morning at 8:45am and afternoon at 5:45pm.It's commentary on the unique people, wildlife, and environment of our coastal region.A Cape Cod Notebook commentators include:Robert Finch, a nature writer living in Wellfleet who created, 'A Cape Cod Notebook.' It won the 2006 New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.

A Freshwater Swimmer, Surrounded by Ocean

m01229 / flickr

For one who’s lived within a few miles of the bay and ocean beaches for more than forty years, I’ve spent very little time swimming in salt water. Given the choice, I will almost always opt to go into a freshwater pond.

Lately I’ve been trying to figure out where this predisposition for fresh over salt water came from. It’s not temperature; I’ve happily swum in Newfoundland ponds that make ocean water here seem tepid. Nor is it an aversion to the summer crowds; as a long-time year-rounder I know any number of secluded saltwater beaches, even at the height of the summer. I’m too old to be scared by rumors of sharks, nor am I particularly averse to the taste of salt-water.

No, like my taste for liverwurst-and-potato-chip sandwiches, I think this irrational preference goes back to my boyhood years in northern New Jersey. On weekends in the summer, my family would make day trips to nearby lakes in the northwest corner of the state: Hopatcong, Mohawk, Greenwood, Highland, and others. It was at one of these lakes that I learned to swim, and from then on I loved the water like an otter. I don’t know why we always went to lakes instead of the ocean, since it was really no farther from our house to the Jersey shore.

The one time I do remember taking a trip to the shore, we drove to Asbury Park. I was five, and I remember standing in the surf, which, though low, was still as tall as I was then. I remember liking the sensation of being lifted by the swell and gently set down again. But something was to happen that put a pall over that day.

Asbury Park had a huge amusement park, and later that afternoon I decided that I wanted to go through the Fun House – alone. Even then I think I enjoyed being scared by something that I knew couldn’t hurt me. My parents tried to dissuade me but, in a rare instance of permissiveness, they finally agreed to let me go.

It was still daytime and there was no one else in the Fun House. I encountered the various skeletons, goblins, witches, and other predictable creatures that jumped out of the dark at me with the easy bravery that comes with the conviction that it’s all make-believe. Then, as I was nearing the exit, I heard a strange, unfamiliar sound – it was a kind of low, rhythmic, muffled growl. It didn’t exactly sound animal-like – or like no animal I was familiar with. I proceeded more slowly, and with growing anxiety, and as I got closer the sound seemed to take on a menacing, grating character. Suddenly all of my untested bravery deserted me, and I raced back to the entrance as fast as I could. I think that it was the first time I ever experienced a profound sense of the Fear of the Unseen.

I emerged into the bright sunlight, chagrined but relieved. But then I noticed that the fearsome sound I had encountered was still there, only now it sounded like it was coming from the back of the Fun House. I peeked around the back corner and saw - a carpenter sawing a board on a sawhorse. That was the mysterious, chilling and mundane sound that had defeated my five-year-old courage.

I don’t know whether there’s any connection between that experience and my dislike of salt water. I only know that that was my first and only trip to the ocean until I came to Cape Cod some fifteen years later, where I first worked as a carpenter, sawing boards.

Robert Finch is a nature writer living in Wellfleet. 'A Cape Cod Notebook' won the 2006 New England Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Radio Writing.