Hi all. I'm writing from Cape Cod, one of my very favorite family vacation places.

My boys LOVE Mayflower Beach. It was closed today b/c of high bacteria counts and we were told it was likely that it would be closed tmorrow as well.

We would love to hear your recommendations for other great SKIMBOARDING beaches. My younger son could skimboard for hours and he thinks Mayflower is the best beach we've ever been to for this.

My favorite beaches are actually on the National Seashore, but the boys are underwhelmed with them, and we are with my parents and don't really want to make them walk up and down those high dunes.

Today we went to South Village beach on the south shore; nice enough (but not Mayflower).

I have a guidebook that makes Cockle Cove Beach and Pleasant Bay beaches in Chatham sound very nice. Are they good for skimboarding?

Also - please let me know about parking issues. For example, we gotto Mayflower on 10am on Monday and the parking lot was already full! We drove up to Wellfleet to do some hiking and saw the National Seashore beaches had lots that were already full by 10:30am (must be a busy week on the Cape!)

We don't mind getting up early to get a parking spot if we need to.

I look forward to your insights.

Gosh, I just love the Cape.

topping - 'cause its dropping

You could try West Dennis Beach. Just drive down to the end about a mile and pull up to the wall and you are on the beach.

It should be fine by tomorrow:

From today's CCTimes:
"Bayview Beach, Mayflower Beach, Howes Street Beach and Chapin Beach were closed to swimming, but health officials anticipated the beaches will return to normal, possibly by today.

"Since we started the beach sampling program, we've not had any closure that lasted overnight," Hayes said."

I hardly ever remember north side beaches being closed to swimming, I do remember S. village Beach being closed alot because of Swan River....

But to answer your skim boarding question, there really isn;t anything like the north side beaches, so maybe head towrds Brewster? You can skim board out on outer Cape, but it's a different style of skimming than on the tidal flats.....i.e. skim down the big drop, into a big crshing wave, and skim that wave in....more like surfing for a short time.

Anywhere on the bayside, from Dennis on down thru Truro is skimboarding heaven. It's all Cape Cod Bay, and all tidal!! The only town that has no access to the bay , beyond Dennis,is Yarmouthport.

The backshore (the Atlantic is not for skimboarding. Now surfing is another matter!

Skimboarding on the bayside is fun for kids, but you can most certainly skimboard on the surf....in fact, that's how it's supposed to be done:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uSF9mfSlRg

Thanks, all. We eneded up at South Village Beach and my kids really liked it. Thurs. we arrived at low tide so there was some decent skimboarding.

My boys loved exploring over by the inlet - was that waterway the Swan River that you referred to, milemarker?

Also, milemarker, I read the same article Thurs. morning and we were going to call and see if Mayflower would re-open, but since the boys were having fun at S. Village, we just stayed there.

And I read in the paper today that Mayflower remained closed y-day.

Mayflower is one of our favorite beaches anywhere in the US!

Yes, Swan River flows to South Village Beach.

Strange to hear that Mayflower had to close for that long...

Glad they were still able to have fun.

I read that the heavy rains on the mid-cape area cape washed bacteria into the waters near the populated/popular Dennis area beaches. Should be short lived once the tide works it's flushing magic! Glad you had a nice time anyway!