If you missed them this year no worries, they will be back, as sure as the high tide that follows the low, here in our town graced by the edge of the Delaware Bay.
In a couple of days we will be leaving the darkest six weeks of the year behind us.
A northwest blow is going to remind us that even though the darkest days are behind us, we still have a cold couple of months staring at us.
Words shrink as the sunlight grows. Imbolc is still weeks away.
A few years ago in late January I watched a crow at the ferry jetty caw caw caw at a gull sharing a light post. The gull did not respond.
The crow swooped down to the pavement, picked up a piece of paper, then returned to its perch near the gull.
The crow carefully ripped up the paper, piece by piece, dropping each piece, one by one, watching each piece until it hit the ground, looking at the gull between pieces as if to say Hey!
When done, the crow cawed once more, and this time the gull squawked back. The crow, now seemingly satisfied, nodded, and then flew to a trash can and cawed at a few human folk, one of whom cawed back.
Short of stepping outside, the ferry is our best low-tech weather forecaster. If you can hear their horns clearly, a lovely southern breeze promises a decent day. If you hear nothing at all, beware, a nor’easter may be blowing in soon.
Far more sophisticated, though, is the NOAA buoy weather station that sits right in our neighborhood, just feet away from where the ferries port each night. (Yes, I know, it’s not a buoy.)
Sitting by the water’s edge like an awkward cousin of C-3PO, this station collects real-time data available to all of us, a high-tech center that collects pretty much any type of data you could want (and plenty of data you might never have thought of before).
For most of us, the temperature, wind speed/direction, and water temperature tell us what we need to know on a given day. When a nor’easter rolls in on the heels of a moon tide, you can watch the water level rise in real time as well look at extremes in the past.
(Just under six years ago the water rose three feet over the mean high tide burying North Wildwood. Two years later the bay receded 2 ½ feet befuddling the ferry captains while delighting any clammers braving the January blow. )
As the days get chillier you can watch the rate of ice accretion as the Delaware Bay starts to freeze over.
Delaware Bay, December 2010
You can wander to the ferry terminal to see the equipment (but it won’t tell you much) or you can explore the page below available to everyone. Few towns get this kind of information, and it is literally right in our neighborhood.
You walk. Then walk some more, one bare foot in front of the other, sometimes on the beach, sometimes in the water.
You look without focus, more seeing what there is to see, less seeing what you expect to see.
You hear the wind, the murmuring of the bay’s edge, the crunching sand under your feet, the squeaky toy noises of the sandpipers, and the low harrumph of a black-backed gull when you wandered too close.
You feel the sand mold around your feet, the water cutting your legs as you cross from flat to flat, the varying hands of the wind as you scan the gray on gray.
But is the way the bay caresses your nose that you want to remember most. The near metallic hint of salty air carrying particles of life, of death, of the in-between into your nose, less than an inch from your brain, memories of faith in whatever this is is.
But you can’t–trying to hold onto a memory of the air of the wintry beach is like trying to grasp a melancholic memory with your fingers.
You need to walk and walk and walk until you cannot.
A blue claw sitting on a late December beach at dusk grabs my interest–I’ve spent a lifetime appreciating the beauty, the feistiness, and the tastiness of the blue crab. The blue on this gray wintry day is startling.
So I took a picture.
And now, looking at the photograph, I marvel at the sand. Pieces of rock, thousand to millions to billions of years old , broken into tiny pieces, mixed with mortal shells, a mishmash of shapes and colors.
The edge of the bay tells stories of time, of mortality, of the unimaginable power of eons of time and tides.
Snow Guy warned us–he mysteriously appears each winter to greet us as we amble down to the bay.
Last week I walked barefoot along the water’s edge, wandering and wondering. The gray skies hid the sun, but the signs were there.
Harpoons on the Bay knew it was coming–the Christmas lights teased me as I walked back up from my walk.
Harpoons on the Bay last week
Winter has been coming for a while now. The ghost crabs are deep in the sand and the laughing gulls are gone, replaced by the diving ducks seen in winter.
Enjoy the snow while you can. Memorial Day is less than 5 months away.
We do not have a town village nor a town clock, but we do have the ferries, coming and going and coming and going, day by day by day.
In the winter months, the ferry’s horn welcomes us at dawn–a short toot just before 7 AM, then the familiar toooooooot toot-toot-toot a minute later–like the town clock bells of old.
You can gather the weather report without electronic media. If you can hear their horns clearly, a lovely southern breeze promises a decent day. If you hear nothing at all, beware, a nor’easter may be blowing in soon.
You may hear tales of drama–TOOT-TOOT-TOOT-TOOT-TOOT –as yet another squid plays footsies with a vessel with a displacement of over 4 million pounds.
Yes, they don’t toot for grandchildren!
And finally, if you have a grand baby old enough to wave from the jetty (but not old enough yet to shave). a friendly captain will often toot a hello for her, and she will be a ferry fan for life.
A peek at the ferry through a North Cape May jetty
The Christmas crowds are almost gone now; the big display on
Town Bank Road was not lit up Friday night. The warm holiday lights give way to
the wintry darkness. The beach belongs, again, to those who need it.
A few herring gulls, a lone sand piper too busy to worry
about me. If there were any scoters or loons, I did not see them in the frothy
waves.
Delaware Bay, Jersey side, January 5, 2020
A nice blow from the northwest built up foam on the edge of
the bay. Small pieces break off and scamper up the beach like scalded
squirrels, quickly dissipating into nothingness.
If you kick along the waves’ edges, you can kick up a storm
of beach foam balls, skittering up the beach. Child’s play, but my birthday is
closer to the 1800s than to the new year, and anyway, no one else was on the
beach to see my foolishness.
I found a small knobbed whelk shell and a large quahog
shell, a piece of muscle still attached, at least a few decades old. This part
of the bay was once flush with clams, and may be again someday, but not today.
Among the scattered oyster shells lay a moon snail shell.
Today the sun was as close as it’s going to get until next
January rolls in, but not close enough to make much difference in the chill. I
wore 4 layers, should have gone with five.
In just a few months, the laughing gulls will be back,
stealing from children squealing under a June sun.
Ferry terminal phragmites
But today, I’m the only one on the beach, from Scott Avenue
down to the ferry jetty, kept company by the few birds facing into the stiff
breeze.
A couple of year’s ago on New Year’s eve. Closest thing I come to resolutions these days.
I watched the sun as it set yesterday. I watched the sun as it rose again this morning.
I don’t do this often enough, few of us do.
Just a few minutes after the sun broke through this morning, a twitchy squirrel sat on top of a fence post, still, facing the sun, then resumed his twitchiness.
A vulture flew within 20 feet of me, its under feathers reflecting the sunlight as it banked.
I just watched. It would have happened anyway. And it’s happening anyway.
