North Cape May

We are among the luckiest folks on the planet, despite living on the edge of an ancient sea that continues to gnaw at the west edge of North Cape May.

Our coastline is feral, as are the creatures found along its edge. Horseshoe crabs, oysters, sand fleas, ghost crabs all go about their business as the bay rises, and will continue to thrive long after our neighborhoods are underwater in the next few millennia.

The bay rose about a foot during the 20th century, and is rising a bit faster now. We don’t need any more studies–ask any local boomer walking along the beach what changes they have seen. Look at the old maps of Town Bank–what was then no longer is, our bay now almost a half mile wider than it was.

Every walk along the bay is a reminder of how ephemeral all this is. The salty, fermenting breeze off the bay is both life and death, the flotsam along the bay made of the remains of critters once as alive as us.

A large, shaggy osprey sat on the jetty rocks, not well. Just a few yards away dolphins fed at the mouth of the canal.

Long shadows and long nights.
Ice and stiff breezes.
December can feel lifeless.

The sun has swung far south, but has paused the past week or two. Solsticeis here.

The past couple of days I have been fortunate seeing bay life. A couple of whales, a few gannets, a seal (all on a ferry crossing), live barnacles, and a tiny fish that got rolled up onto the beach at low tide.

I picked up the fish, felt it squirm, surprisingly strong for its size, then tossed it back into the water.

People come to Beach Drive to see the water, the Christmas trees, to drink at Harpoon’s, to jog along the sidewalk, to get fresh air.

But walk down to the beach and feel life. It’s windier, it’s wetter, it’s wilder, it’s worth it.

The water is still above 70 degrees, the jellyfish are (mostly) gone, and the beach is wide open.

Dogs are welcome again, the ghost crabs rule the beaches, tossing sand around as they dig their holes, and the sun sets almost due east now.

It’s a good year for beach plums if you know where to find them, but leave some for the wildlife.

It’s locals’ summer, for may of us the best time of the year.

Earlier, when the tide was a few feet higher, I had brushed against a jellyfish and got lucky. The tentacles were drifting away from me.

Getting stung by jellyfish is a July ritual for folks who enjoy bouncing in the bay. Not fun, but not terrible, either, so long as its one of our more common critters.

This particular jelly, unlikely the one I encountered earlier, got too close to the edge, and now it sits under the dying light of last night’s sunset.

As different as we are, we share many of the same proteins, the same DNA code, the same need for sunlight to keep us alive.

Our bay is home to sand tiger sharks–like much of Philly, they love to spend their summers lolling about in the Delaware Bay.

They are not particularly aggressive, and if you pay attention at dusk, you might see a fin slicing through the water. While most fins we see belong to dolphins, sand tigers can occasionally be seen traveling through shallow waters near the beach. They gulp air and hang at the surface, like our Philly friends roasting on floats.

As much as I like spending time under the bay’s surface, I avoid swimming at night.

Here’s why:

Not very aggressive doesn’t mean never aggressive–there have been 36 unprovoked sand tiger attacks, maybe not a whole lot considering how close we swim to them.

But for 36 humans, it was aggressive enough. And in every incident, the human survived.

I think the date says November 30, 1985, almost 4 decades ago,

The tide has risen, the tied has ebbed over 25,000 times since then.

The love lock rests on a sign post facing the bay, a bit rusty, but still holding. A couple likely placed this there themselves, many years ago. (It might have been there for decades, though. The bay is unforgiving.

Where are they now?