Hi!
I read somewhere that the crew of the Mayflower first went ashore near the tip of Cape Cod, near the modern town of Provincetown, MA. They then left the area and continued on to the mainland, where they settled in Plymouth.
What would have happened had they decided to set up shop on the Cape for good? Here are some of the reasons they could have chosen:
1. God sent us here, so that's where we're going to stay.
2. "Provincetown" is easily defended, connected to the rest of the Cape by a thin spit of land we'll call Truro. This argument, by the way, may have contributed to the British founding Boston where it is.
3. A location on the bay side will protect our ships from storms.
4. There's water all around us. It's easy to sail all over the place and transport stuff. We'll get lots of fish, too.
The only reasons I can think of why they wouldn't do it is that there isn't much arable land out there (it's all sandy), so livestock and produce may be hard to raise.
Could they have done it?
ACG