The bay promises us nothing, but often surprises anyway.
Over the years I have found ambergris, a live sea horse, a large school of rays in inches of water, a jumping surgeon, a couple of whales, and the usual (but no less miraculous) dolphins, ghost crabs, horseshoe crabs, oysters, and sand fleas.
But until last week I never saw a sea cucumber.
A living rock, lolling in the wash, responding to my touch. I gently picked it up and put it in water a tad deeper, but I suppose it is doomed.
But so are we, so bring on the joy of the unexpected.
Every year thousands creep their way to the edge of their world and celebrate the long June days as only a critter around for hundreds of millions of years can.
They came before the dinosaurs.
The only other humans on this half-mile patch of beach were a few kids flipping exuberant males back on their many feet, their parents drinking at the local watering hole across the street.
A few moments earlier, only a few of the critters were visible, but cued by voices humans cannot hear, they rose from the waters, seemingly in unison, to creep to the top of the tide line.
An hour later, most will be gone. A few will not return to the water, their gills a treat for the gulls.
In a couple of weeks, the high tide will help release the few of the millions of new critters that survive through June.
Most will fall prey to the ghost crabs, the gulls, the grackles, the killies and kingfish. The Audubon Society folk will praise the eggs as fodder for the red knots, perhaps easier on human eyes but certainly not nearly as interesting as these creatures from the depths of the bay.
Decades ago I stumbled on thousands of horseshoe crab babies, moments before they emerged from their now transparent shells, spinning and spinning as if anticipating their release.
Ghost crabs spend their winters right here in North Cape May, snuggled a few feet under the beach in their burrows, waiting for spring.
You get through winter several feet under the sand. You greet living again after a long months in your dark wintry tomb. And then you keel over at your doorstep as the sun sets, again, on your patch of Earth. There’s a lesson here.
If the beach is not crowded and you sit real still (their eyeballs work real well), you can see them going ghost crabby things during the day.
Enjoy their company and try not to step on their doorways. They’re locals, after all.
I am not about to burn my clamming spots, though I did get one ridiculously cheap by tipping the bartender at the Villas Fishing Club $10 on two $1 beers. (Rumor was he loved to clam in his younger years.)
Another mess of local clams, and plenty more if you know where to find them.
The first $5 tip got me this–if you want fresh clams, go to the Lobster House.
The next $5 got me a lovely mudflat I only share with close family.
What’s not nearly as secret though are the oysters hanging off the jetties in North Cape May.
The rainbow is for gold, the jetty is for oysters.
Are they sandy? Yep.
Are they way too close to the discharge pipes? Yep again.
(I cannot vouch for their safety but I can vouch for their tastiness; I’ve eaten a couple raw right off the jetty.)
Avoid the canal, the rest of the bay is fine.
You’ll need a license ($10/year for state residents) and little else. Just beware that they’re going to be a bit sandy.
You can dine at Heather’s On The Bay–just tell them you’re with the band or the kitchen. You cannot beat the view, and its a more intimate setting than Harpoon’s On The Bay.
Bunker dominate the bay. They’re a big reason why dolphins, stripers, and humpback whales wander just off our beach. My grandchild calls them “skyfish” when she sees one wiggling in the talons of an osprey as it flies overhead.
Chances are you’ve seen pieces of larger bunker along the tide line–stiff, gray, dead.
This little guy was also stiff and dead, but its brilliant colors jumped at me as I ambled along the ferry jetty. A storm tide had left him on the wrong side of the rocks and the gulls had yet to find him.
I tried to toss it back into the canal, but with the stiff breeze, it fell between the jetty rocks, a treat for the crabs.
I know what folks will pay for this. I also know what it’s worth. Two very different things….
I have a chunk of ambergris, found it years ago, and while briefly tempted to sell it, am grateful now I kept it.
It was sitting right on the edge of the bay just north of Lincoln Avenue. It wasn’t much to look at, and I am not sure what possessed me to pick it up. Even then I almost tossed it back into the bay.
I mostly forget about it, but now and again I walk through a cloud of its molecules and get briefly taken to, well, not sure where, some vague place of immeasurable joy.
Not immense. Immeasurable.
In the literal sense.
Edge of the Delaware Bay brings gifts every day.
You cannot measure the pleasure, the joy, the presence of the herenow that lump of aged whale shit brings me. It apparently has the same effect on others, why else would anyone offer thousands of dollars for a slab of shite?
The big data junkies among us might argue that all things are measurable, and I supposed you could take pre- and post-ambergris exposure levels of my serum oxytocin and plot them over time, but that becomes impractical, and it’s not important anyway..
Turns out measuring some pretty important things in education are impractical, too. Brilliant writing. Unorthodox but rational thinking. Sense of public duty. Joy. Ability to observe subtle details. Flexibility when confronted with new ideas. Empathy.
When our ability to measure outcomes trumps our choices of which outcomes matter, we’ve stripped “public” from education.
(My sister has a park named after her in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I’m sure many locals call it many different names and I’m fine with that. My clan calls the David Douglass Sr. Memorial Park “the ferry jetty” and many locals have a variety of names for this tiny patch of paradise. This post is to remind all of us about the man whose name adorns the small monument at the park entrance.)
January 17, 2022
North Cape May is not a large neighborhood, only about 1 1/2 square miles. The bay gives us an air of grandness bigger than our britches.
Patrolman David Douglass Sr. was shot and killed in our neighborhood almost 28 years ago while pursuing a suspected burglar. The suspect fired at Officer Douglass, mortally wounding him. His body now rests in the Cold Spring Presbyterian Church cemetery just a couple of miles away from the park.
David Douglass Sr. Memorial Park gazebo overlooking the canal and the bay,
David Douglass Sr. was both a local police officer and firefighter. He was a husband and father to a son and two daughters, the oldest only 15 at the time of his death. He has both a school and a park named after him, and his son has followed his steps into law enforcement.
Ferry in the distance on its way to Delaware.
Next time you amble down the narrow road to the park, take a moment to view the memorial honoring the man. I hope it brings some comfort to the family, as I get comfort from seeing my sister’s name on her park.
