Cape May, New Jersey – 2 miles by dinghy, 7 kilometres walked
This morning it drizzled for about 25 minutes. That’s the first rain we’ve seen since in over two weeks and I don’t think there was single two week period this summer when we didn’t get pounded with a rainstorm. The weather we’ve experienced so far has been excellent. Sunny days, cool nights, and when the winds have been strong, they have usually been in our favour. I have always been a strictly summer guy but I will admit the quality of the fall season has been rising in my estimation.
Despite both of us still feeing rotten, and despite there being a 20 knot wind blowing us toward a lee shore (which means the wind is blowing you towards land) with our trusty Rocna anchor holding us steady, we decided to take the dinghy into South Jersey Marina then walk into town. We passed by commercial docks and saw a large fleet of massive fishing vessels, the ones with ten miles length of nets all wound up on giant rollers. I had quick look online and this is one of the largest fishing ports on the east coast and their primary catch is scallops, squid, mackerel, lobster, and butterfish. The government website also read that in 2013 their overall catch was 20 million pounds with an estimated value of $35 million. So at a buck-fifty per pound to the fishermen, the massive amount of margin must be going to the middlemen and retailers. There was also a large number of big sportfishing charter boats in the marina. Sometimes I wonder how there can be any fish at all left in the ocean.
It was a nice, long walk into town and what we found there was a cute tourist town, centered around the Washington Street Mall pedestrian area. It was lined up with specialty boutiques, coffee shops, restaurants, and had great street furniture for all the old men to sit on while the wives burnt up their social security cheques in the stores.
From here we walked towards the ocean and found an incredibly huge and luscious beach with white sand, lifeguard stations, beachside cafes, and washroom/changerooms. As it was the end of the season, the beach was deserted but I could imagine the hoards of tourists here in July.
I was really not feeling so well, and also nervously looking at the anchor app (which mirrors from my own phone left at the boat to track its movements and screeches out an alarm if the boat moves outside of its anchor range…meaning the anchor has let loose and you are in big trouble) every few minutes, so we returned to the marina, dinghy’d back, and found the boat exactly as we left it, except the wind was even stronger now.
The rest of the day was spent route planning for the following day, which was going to be a big one as we had to get up the Delaware Canal, and it was not known by others to be the most enjoyable part of the journey. Ben and Kate wanted to come by for a visit but that would involve bleaching every surface and fumigating the entire contents of the boat, then we’d have to leave before they got here so as not to infect them, so they considered it then decided against that plan.
In the evening we had a quick call with my brother Curtis. Ana noticed on Facebook that they are selling their lovely cabin in Manitou beach in Saskatchewan and we were very surprised as they haven’t had it for long and absolutely love it.
“You guys moving somewhere?” I asked him.
“No, why?” Curtis replied.
“You’re selling the cabin. What’s up with that?”
“Time to move onto other opportunities.”
“Did you do a spreadsheet for that analysis?”
“Of course so! How do you think we made it to that decision?”
“You know, some people say you can’t put a value on fun. I say those people just haven’t learned how to use Excel properly.”
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