Cape May, NJ

 Cape May, NJ

After a 57-mile cruise down Delaware Bay, we arrived at Utsche’s Marina, a looper favorite, on Saturday, the 21st. It was a beautiful, sunny day and fairly hot. After a quick boat cleaning, we launched the bikes and went for a ride. 

Cape May is a National Historic Landmark treasured for its beautiful Victorian architecture. We have seen many nice examples of this type of architecture in other small towns along the way, but nothing on the quality and scale of what Cape May offers. Many of the homes are impeccably restored to their original state, with new construction keeping many of the elements to blend nicely together. Right next to the Marina was a very old, established eatery called the Lobster House, where you can eat out back sitting on an old schooner. The food was surprisingly good. About 1.5 miles to the south was the Cape May mall area. Not a mall like you think but an area that they permanently closed the streets so that all the shops and restaurants open onto the mall area. Sue found the local watering hole called C-View, that is the oldest tavern in Cape May. Are you all starting to see a theme here? 

We were not the only loopers in town. There wound up being over a dozen in our marina and another dozen at the marina next door. Where there are loopers, there is bound to be docktails. 

 

Mother Nature again reared her ugly head and kept the winds up such that the sea state would not allow the “Pleasure” part in pleasure boating. So we were stuck in port once again, sort of! Cruising on your own boat seems so exotic and sometimes it is and other times you wonder; “What were we thinking”? As we all know, shit happens. Well, the fairy godmother of shit paid us a visit. A fierce current, a mishandled dock line by a dock hand, and a boat that does not have a lot of power caused the dinghy to get caught between the boat and a piling. Note to self, do not use said inflatable as a fender. Bad things happen. 

Well, we all know that the shit fairy never just drops off one load; they always come in threes. Our other two were the chart plotter went down and the salon AC froze up. First, the dinghy. That involved getting the dinghy off the boat, loaded into a truck, and hauled 3.5 hours away to Annapolis for repair. That was after much begging and groveling with Annapolis Inflatables as they were backed up three weeks. So we dropped it off, returned to the boat, and repeated two days later. Good news is the dinghy is all healed up and ready for action. 

The AC service took an additional round of begging, bribing, and offers to clean the shop to get him to come to the boat and add some juice to the system. Good news there: also, AC now blows snow out of the vents. Bad news is now we will never see warm weather on the trip! Chart plotter is still currently at the helm. Every so often, it needs a slap on the side of the CPU to get the screen to come back. We have procured a shipping box, so it will be heading out for repair tomorrow. 

We needed to keep it in play in case we got caught in fog during our Jersey coast run to NYC. So hopefully the fairy will leave us alone for a while. So on with Cape May. We took a bike ride down to the lighthouse at Cape May Point. On the way back we stumbled onto Cape May Winery. No love for Mike as they did not sell beer. Sue really missed her wing women! 

On Sunday we went to a little church right on the Marina property right next to the Cape May Canal. Homey little church with a pastor that delivered a good message. We needed to do a little praying to see if we could get back on the right track. 

        So this is Sue typing now. I couldn’t get enough of the Victorian homes and toured the Emlen Physick Estate. Owned by a 20-year-old doctor, this 18-room house tour gave me insight into life in a Victorian home. The dining room table was set with an interesting vase with artificial celery in it. The tour guide explained that celery was considered a delicacy, hard to come by, and impossible to grow in Cape May’s sandy soil. The Victorians did not allow food to be touched with your hands. No holding a chicken drumstick. The celery was placed in a crystal vase and served with tongs and eaten with a fork and knife after cutting it into small pieces. The next home I toured was my FAVORITE. The house in the photo is a vacation rental. Formerly the Baltimore Hotel, it was purchased by the Girls Friendly Society.    

It is a charitable organization that empowers girls ages 5 to 25 to develop their full potential through confidence-building programs, community service, Bible knowledge, to name a few, and is deeply affiliated with the Episcopal Church. My grandmother was my mom’s leader. When you were in high school, you could work during the summer at this house in Cape May. My mom, as a young girl, jumped at the opportunity to work with other girls for the summer at “Holiday House.” Eight girls could stay the summer and had a chaperone that lived at the house. The girls worked to get rooms ready for vacationers, plan activities for the young children on vacation, serve meals in the dining hall, and help to run the day-to-day operations of the hotel.    Sadly, this is the last of the GFS houses. My mom remained friends with the girls she “worked with” at Holiday House. As I closed the squeaky porch door behind me, I could imagine my mom walking through the very same doors, ready to lend a hand to a vacationer.