Things to Do in Mashpee

Jim Ballantyne's passion for windsurfing started in an unexpected place—on Austria's snow-dusted mountain peaks. After growing up in Westfield, Jim left for Europe to pursue a skiing career and subsequently spent his summer days windsurfing on Lake Garda in Italy. Realizing he had more passion for being on the water than on the mountains, he became a windsurfing instructor, surgically implanted a fin on his dorsal side, and moved back to the United States.

Today, Jim and his wife, Pam, continue to organize windsurfing lessons, as well as standup-paddleboard lessons. For experienced riders, they rent gear and a maintain a stock of new and used equipment, which expands to further action sports such as biking and snowboarding.

In the depths of Cape Cod swim delicacies such as sea-bass and fluke. With backgrounds in both commercial and recreational fishing, the captains of Helen H Fleet lead anglers on trips for these catches, motoring to fishing grounds such as Nantucket Sound. The four-boat fleet, which ranges from the 30-foot Sea Hawk to the 100-foot Helen H, lets the captains accommodate small charters of one to five anglers as well as party cruises. Crews rent out rods and reels, as well as sell refreshments in between anglers' bouts with feisty bass or boots stuck to the ocean floor. Targeted species change with the season, and Helen H Fleet's captains also charter whale- and seal-watching excursions whenever the creatures migrate along Cape Cod.