Sunken Meadow Beach

A peaceful Eastham bay beach with excellent sunset views. The name comes from the meadow behind the beach that floods at high tide. Another quiet alternative to First Encounter.

Sunken Meadow takes its name from the salt marsh meadow behind the dune that floods at high tide, creating a hidden tidal pond. The beach itself is small and almost always quiet — at most a dozen cars on a peak summer day. Like its Eastham bay-side siblings, it offers warm shallow water on the incoming tide, broad firm flats at low, and a sunset over the bay that doesn't get the First Encounter crowd because most visitors don't know to look here. Bring everything; there are no facilities. Best in September, when the water still holds August's warmth, the greenhead flies have given up, and you can have the beach and the sunset largely to yourself. The marsh behind the beach is a quiet birding spot — egrets, willets, the occasional osprey overhead.