PROVINCETOWN — I’ll admit it: the first thing I did when I arrived at the harbormaster’s office on MacMillan Pier at 4:44 a.m. on April 16 was lie down on the ground. I propped my head on top of my backpack and closed my eyes. After about 10 minutes, when my body recognized that the cold, hard ground was too uncomfortable for a proper nap, I sat up and looked around.
I’d arrived for what I’d been told was a classic Provincetown rite of spring: the distribution of kayak rack permits. The ritual begins with kayakers gathering as early as 4 a.m. in hopes of getting choice spots for their beloved boats.
What I did not know that day was that this would be the last time townspeople would wake up at an ungodly hour to earn a sought-after slot. I later learned from Pier Manager Jamie Demetriou that on July 1, when the Provincetown Public Pier Corp. gives over management of the pier to the Dept. of Public Works, the kayak permitting process will enter the 21st century and go online. “People don’t need to wake with the birds anymore,” Demetriou wrote with that news.
At that early hour, the only light came from the cabins of docked fishing boats, bobbing in the dark waters. The lineup had been described to me as “crazed,” but when I approached the queue, I found four people in folding chairs, chatting softly about the Vietnam War and playing Wordle as if they were sitting on a friend’s front porch on an ordinary day.
It was difficult for me to understand why anyone would wake up so early to get a kayak slot. I was there doing a favor for a friend. I’ve been on a kayak a few times and, sure, I liked it, but finding parking for it would not be something I would normally wait in a long line to do. Provincetown has 240 slots on 12 racks at 9 locations along the waterfront. That should be enough for every kayak in town, I thought.
But I was quickly proved wrong. When Matt Stowe, a part-time Provincetown resident, rolled up on his bike at 4:48 a.m. and saw the line had already begun to form, he said, “There are five people crazier than me.” Stowe told me this was his fifth year in the line. Last year, he said, he rarely used his kayak because the spot he got was on a rack too far from his house.
Behind Stowe stood Thomas Coyle, a Provincetown resident who showed up at 4:50 a.m. He works at Outer Cape Health Services and was seemingly unfazed by the early wake-up time required for this task. It was his eighth year to join the kayak line. “You see the same people every year,” Coyle said. “It’s communal. It marks the end of winter.”
A man ahead of me who would say only that his name was John stepped out of the line and walked up and down, chatting with everyone, much more energized than anyone else present. John told me that he was in a relationship with Maxine Notaro, an administrative assistant in the harbormaster’s office who distributes the kayak permits, but that meant no boon for him as far as the line went. He still had to wake up early, and here he was.
He nodded to a woman in the queue and said, “That’s Maxine’s daughter,” another bit of proof that nobody gets special treatment on kayak permit day.
Slowly, the line began to lengthen. There were about 20 people in it at 5:15 a.m. when sunlight began to pour over the horizon, at which point the mood noticeably lightened: friends greeted each other, discussing which kayak slots they pined for. I noticed an edge of competitiveness in some of these exchanges, as when a description of a desirable slot at West Vine was met with a curt reply of “Oh.”
Then, something unprecedented happened. Notaro arrived on her bicycle, smiling at the crowd as everyone whispered excitedly. “I was at home knitting, thinking about all of you in the cold, and I decided to take a shower and come over,” she said.
Ordinarily, the harbormaster’s office does not open until 8 a.m., Coyle told me. That means at least three hours of waiting, if not more. But today, the doors swung open at 5:30 a.m. and within moments I had a slot on the lower rack at West Vine. There would be plenty of time for a nap before work.
