i spend alot of my time at the beach here at cape cod.Specificaly outer beaches(only accessible by boat)i live here and share my special places with people from other states(i hate them all)who cant say hi or even smile. i spent most of april cleaning the beaches( i have found dish racks from cruise ships water bottles used diaper and a bout enough rope to kill a 1000 seals. i like to keep the beach clean and it makes me feel like im making a difference.All these tourists who walk the beaches and shorelins collecting shells have no concern of ropE or water bottles or fishing gear affecting or coastal habitat .....but are more concerned of collecting shells for personal gain.Am i jealous because they are here and take over?? my whole community survives on summer visiters and believe me it gets old.Ive lived here most of my life and was born and raised here.And without :them: there would be no capecod, I know im lucky to live here and without being brought up here...Im sure i couldnt afford this place.the summer visitors seem <rich and snobby> and they are i guess it comes with $$$i wouldnt know...im like everyone else in the middle class anyway ...WHY DONT THEY WANNA CLEAN UP THE PLACE WHERE THEY SPEND SO MUCH MONEY TO COME VISIT

My definition would be that you are an enviromentalist. Just because you care about our earth, and the beaches in Cape Cod does not make you a "hater". I think another description would be "you hate the lack of concern of the tourist that come and trash Cape Cod". And understandably so.

Dear Cheri,

While I share your vehement hate of distruction of our wonderful beach environment, you must stop and realize that pollution is not always done on purpose.

To give you an example, I was boating in South Florida this past winter, fishing actually, and we were heading back into port. Not until we had gotten back did we realize our bait bucket had gone overboard. It was big, white and plastic. We were all upset that we had polluted our wonderful ocean with this plastic.

Mother Nature is a powerful force. She causes boats to sink. When boats sink, all things that float will eventually wash ashore and if they float, they pollute. So that old piece of styrofoam that you think someone may have carelessly thrown overboard may infact be a part of a boat that has sunk. Maybe lives were lost trying to keep that boat from sinking. Who knows?

My point is, there are two sides to every story. Try and give the benefit of the doubt.

Tourists bring money which fund enviromental programs. Try to see the good in this.

Sincerely,
Go Travel

Well, Cheriberry, I've never been to Cape Cod, but I for one thank you for your efforts. I can appreciate anyone who makes an effort to help keep nature beautiful, so don't feel like your efforts are going unnoticed.

Personally I love the beach, any beach, and agree with you that it's a shame to see them spoiled. And I feel your pain about people who can't even return a "hi" or a smile; I recently started a new job and I've never seen people ignore another human being (yours truly) like they do here. Sheesh!

Keep up the good work, and focus on the ones who do smile back.

for the same reason people throw trash onto a road or highway...they are slobs.

Hi Cheriberry - I feel your pain. I grew up in a tourist destination and I know the mixed feelings it brings. Jobs depend on the tourists, but you sometimes pray they'd just fall off the face of the Earth. Usually it's the few bad apples that set you off. Most are really very nice, or at least neutral.

We reacted in several ways. Every year during the weekend before Memorial Day was TAB (Tourists Are Back) Party weekend. This unofficial "holiday" for the locals was a great chance to blow off steam. Then, during the weekend after Labor Day, we had - you guessed it - a TAG (Tourists are Gone) weekend.

And one of the most wonderful women I have ever known - a 70-year-old pillar of her church, hospital volunteer and warm and loving wife, mother and grandmother - had the best T-shirt I've ever seen: "They call it tourist season. So why can't we shoot 'em?"

Buck up. You're doing good work.

Worktowander, love the Tshirt saying!! That is funny.

It reminds me of one time in Venice. I was behind two darling curly headed little Italian boys. About 10 years of age. One almost got pushed into the canal by a group of tourist who were paying no attention to where they were walking. He turned to his little buddy and said " (I will leave the adjective to your imagination) turisti". I thought I would die laughing. I often have wondered if he stayed in Venice when he became an adult.

wow i really like the saying on that shirt i wonder if i can get one....lol

How about the riff-raff that stick their cigarette butts in the sand? They are about the lowest life forms on Earth and that is not by accident. That is why I'm gearing my vacation time away from beaches and the filthy humans there and more toward the mountains.

You're not a hater. I think it's difficult to live in a tourist area, especially a seasonal one, and not feel animosity towards the tourists. Yes, we couldn't survive without them, but it can be frustrating when life is disrupted with the onslaught of tourist season. And, unfortunately, the "bad" ones stand out more than the "good" ones. I think half of the ones who show disregard to the environment are oblivious to what they're doing.

I was a third-generation Cape Codder myself (I now live closer to Boston), and your sentiments are shared by so many people I know. My mother, especially, would concur with your comments on tourists <who can't even say hi or even smile>. This is one of her pet peeves.

unfortunatly most garbage in the ocean is not in the ocean "by mistake"

Yup...as someone who grew up in the Berkshires and lived in FL, I can relate to tourism overload. No parking at the beaches. Highways jammed with people not sure where they are going. Our favorite beach bar SRO and you can't get served if you do get there (after walking blocks from the first available parking space). Restaurants packed. Concerts sold out. Some visitors are rude, but generally they are not. Our economies do depend on them however, absolutely!

My husband and I have taken part in beach clean-ups too and I am convinced that the locals are as much to blame as the tourists. We couldn't throw the blame on tourists where we did our clean-ups as we were in an area used primarily by local fishermen--a causeway over Tampa Bay between Tampa and Clearwater. We picked up tons of beer bottles, plastic bags, fishing line, diapers, tires, styrofoam, a microwave oven, cigar wrappers, cigarette butts, clothing etc...99% of it left by locals, not tourists, with no regard for the environment. Our group left the area spotless and felt a huge sense of accomplishment. We run in that area. The next weekend when we were back to run, the mess was back again too. There are trash cans every 20 or 30 yards along the stretch, but inevitably within a week of a clean up, there'd be piles of beer cans/bottles/picnic supplies on the ground no more than 5' from a half empty trash can, left by people too lazy to take the effort to put things in the cans. Discouraging...but if we didn't take part in these clean-ups, what on earth )) would our earth look like? This behavior isn't indigenous to tourists. It's a very unfortunate sign of the times.

I totally understand your anger. It is amazing how many people don't have simple decency. When I was running along the river path in Telluride I greeted everyone I ran past, and not ONE person returned my greeting. Then I read in the local paper how an assistant to a Hollywood producer was threatened with arrest when she went past security to stop a plane from leaving b/c her boss was running late and wanted the plane to wait for him! And this was AFTER 9/11!

Money just doesn't buy class and it doesn't buy manners. I saw some of the most rudest behavior at a big (expensive) bat mitzvah last month. And we just stayed at the Four Seasons Maui and couldn't believe how some people were treating the staff. The staff was incredibly professional and polite, and some people were talking to them as if they were talking to a small, not very bright, child. son, "Excuse me, you were wrong!" A member of the staff commented that my husband and I were the nicest people, and what's sad is that I don't think we were doing anything out of the ordinary than being polite.

I agree that most of the pollution out there is not accidental. But I take my gripes a step further and get really upset not just with litter, but with our society's preoccupation with paving over every small bit of open space. It was truly disappointing to arrive in Maui, and the first thing I saw when departing the airport was a Starbucks, then a Borders, then another strip mall. I could have been back home. I did not want Hawaii to look like just another suburban strip mall!

The hatred of tourists exists everywhere. My cousin works in Park City, Utah, mecca of rich skiers. Even though her livihood comes directly from the tourists who rent their "lodges" she and her co-workers Hate them all. The locals wear black (like a funeral) during the Sundance Film Festival to smub the festival goers without them knowing it.

Biting the hand that feeds you makes no sense. Cheri, your community tax dollars should clean that beach. Every tourist area in America cleans up for the tourists.

wow ive just read all the rsposes i love youre feedback,thoughts and ideas.... i love this board.my boyfrind and i have lobster traps and know how much of a participant are the fisherman who have all the rope bait bags and traps we are very concious and do everything possible to know where are ropes are and where they end up.....i dont mind cleaning the beaches and as regards to its gonna be right back there next week i understand.......i guess i dont get the kicking over the old sunbleached oil jug to retrieve a nice shell to "bring back home "i hate tourists and at the dock forget it .today for instance ....its memorial day weekend here and the rat race has begun...lolwe went out on the boat pretty early and had a great day .we went out the inlet hoping to see a whale or two and came across a adrift bouy and called it in to the harbor master it had been loose for two days and no one has seen it (its a channel marker and a most important bouy) we have alot of shallows and sandbars here in chatham....anyway the harbor master couldnt find it and called us back on vhf... we again explained exactly where we had marked it on the gps... on our way back in we passed the harbor master towing the channel marker back to its original position (bout 2 miles0 i felt like id done something ...it was us who actually took a stand to make an effort ....so were on our way in and now at the dock and it never fails (summers here and so are the boat idiots) an older gentlman and his daughter and her small childeren 3 of them are trying to put there boat in a stanger gets on board to keep the other boat from backing into us ...the older guy has so clue then the daughter has to get on our boat to skip to that one heavens ta batsy are they safe to navigate through the waters they couldnt even take the boat from the trailer to the water ...im fed up already and the worst isnt even here yet GOD HELP ME ....I REALIZE PEOPLE ARE PEOPLE BUT SHEESH. I JUST WISH THE SUMMER VISITOR S WERE MORE SEA WORTHY AND FRIENDLIER i guess living inland and not using youre boat often can contribute maybe ill have more patientce this summer but its not looki good so far

Again, a flashback to my childhood in a tourist area. My dad calls the folks you describe at the boat ramps as "owners of $100,000 worth of boat and 10 cents worth of brains."

Remember, Labor Day is just a few months away.

worktowander......nice quote you hit it right on .. youe dada is right ...thnks for youre support lol

cheriberrry- I am a Cape Cod wannabe. I started attending camp as a child (Quanset) and my parents owned a home for many years in E. Orleans. I love the Cape and treat it like the paradise it seems to me. But even as a summer visitor I also can see the changes and watch the idiot visitors wreck havoc upon my beloved Cape. Living now in NJ, I understand about summer visitors to the shore.

My Mother was a die hard environmentalist until the day she died. I have heard numerous stories about her stopping her ancient car on the side of the road just to clean up trash. I guess she passed some of that to me. So there will always be those of us who respect and love our planet and those who are only seeing themselves. Don't give up hope...there are those of us who do care and are passing that legacy down to our children.