Chapin Memorial Beach

A long, narrow bay beach where you can drive on the sand with a permit. At low tide, it feels like the ocean disappeared and left a desert behind. Dogs allowed in the off-season.

Chapin Memorial — known locally as Chapin Beach — is the Dennis bay beach you go to for the spectacle of low tide. The exposed flats stretch a half-mile or more out into the bay, ribbed with sand bars and shallow tidal pools that warm to bath-water temperatures by mid-afternoon. ORV permits allow over-sand vehicles to drive a stretch of the beach in season, which gives Chapin a wilder, more open feel than the manicured town beaches at Corporation and Mayflower. The parking lot is paved but modest; arriving by 10 a.m. on summer weekends is wise. Plovers nest on the dunes in spring, and seasonal closures are strictly enforced. After Labor Day the beach opens to dogs and to a different crowd — locals walking in the long autumn light. Sunsets over the bay here are some of the most photographed on Cape Cod.