BALTIMORE

We decided to make a long day of it and leave Crisfield at first light for Baltimore.   One other motor yacht left before us called Ladybug Too.  It was the only other pleasure boat in the Crisfield marina while we were there.  It arrived sometime yesterday while we were at Tangiers and today seemed to be going the same direction we were.  It was far enough ahead of us to be just in visual range most of the day although traveling a bit slower than us, we passed them by midday.  As we headed farther north we heard Ladybug Too calling Hummingbird, another boat.  We chuckled as we heard them call the names several times, “Hummingbird, Hummingbird, this is Ladybug.”    Later we heard him hail, Bumblebee.  It was like the invasion of the birds and bees.  Later in the afternoon they all finally linked up on the radio.  It was funny to hear them all hailing each other.    

The weather and seas were very calm and we weren’t troubled by too many crab pots today because we were in the main shipping channel heading up the bay.  The day was pretty uneventful, and the weather so calm that it was almost boring (knock on wood).  It was nice to just cruise along without any strain for a change.  There wasn’t even a splash across the bow the whole day.  We just headed up the Chesapeake Bay pointing our nose north to Baltimore.

About the only thing out of the ordinary the whole day was a vessel that hailed us on the radio about mid day.  It was a large research vessel.  The captain was interested in our boat and was asking all sorts of questions about it; like fuel consumption, type of engines, how much water it held and could we make water, etc.  We asked them what they were up to and he said they were a research vessel, tagging crabs and checking the water and fish for pollution.  He was a very nice captain and we enjoyed talking to him.  We’ve found that the people on the Chesapeake are a very friendly bunch and it’s not unusual for a complete stranger to hail you on the radio and ask questions about you’re boat, where you’re going or where you’ve been.  They’re just being friendly.   We’ve had several chats like that last summer and looks like it may be the same this summer.  Lots of friendly nice people here.

Well, we passed under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and it’s quite a bridge.  Quite significant too as it links the more rural Eastern Shore to the more cosmopolitan Western Shore.  It was another two hours coming up the Patapsco River to Baltimore.  We were excited to be entering Patapsco River towards Baltimore, putting ourselves mentally back in time to the War of 1812.  It was amazing to imagine what it would have been like to be sailing up this river with 50 British Naval Ships heading towards Baltimore to wreak havoc on the city like they did earlier on DC by burning it down.  Today though, Patapsco River is not a pretty cruise as the shores are lined with industrial plants and smoke stacks.  The skies and shores are a dull grey.  I’m wondering if we’re doing the right thing, leaving the pretty quaint anchorages and villages of the Chesapeake by heading up this industrial zone. 

We pass North Point, where troops are on shore and marching by land to the outskirts of Baltimore with the intention of attacking when the British navy arrived in the harbor.  Little did they know, Baltimore was ready and determined to fight them off do or die, even though the British out numbered them.  The British were experienced in war having fought the most revered figure in military history, Napoleon, and the French for 10-11 years.  These Americans were rough, green and dreadfully inexperienced in comparison.  They may not have been a likely bunch to go up against this sophisticated civilized British navy but they were ready and determined to save their freedom. 

We can make out the skyline of Baltimore as we reach the Francis Scott Bridge.  We are amazed at the major ship yards and large ships and barges loaded with cartons lining the shore.  We hear a tug announce his intension to bring a load out of such and such pier.  We see him ahead and slow down to give him room as he slowly crosses the channel in front of us with his huge load.  We pass the big white Red Cross hospital ship Comfort and wonder if it’s been in Iraq.  This working harbor is an amazing site.  It’s huge and massive.   click on the camera for photos  

We pass what was to be Fort Carroll on our starboard.  It was to be another defense structure and was started in 1848 but without substantial funds was abandoned and there it lies in the same condition as when it was partially started.  Once we pass under Francis Scott Bridge we see Fort Mc Henry which is an important landmark in our nation’s history as it held off the British navy in one of the most important battles of our nation.  We pass a buoy painted red, white and blue which marks the spot where Francis Scott Key watched the entire battle from a boat that was trapped between the British and closed off harbor.  He watched as the British ships bombarded the soldiers on Fort Mc Henry.  Our soldiers took a terrible bombardment but never gave up once.  He saw them fight so heroically and the sight of the huge American flag flying at dawn so inspired him to write what we now have as “The Star Spangled Banner”.  We pass Fort Mc Henry to our port and cross over the spot where the city of Baltimore whose lively hood depended upon their shipping, sacrificed their valuable shipping vessels by scuttling them across the channel from Fort Mc Henry to the shore preventing the British navy from getting close enough to the city of Baltimore to destroy it.  What a town this must have been, they all pulled together, made big sacrifices and fought off the experienced and though outnumbered, kept the British at bay.  What a brave bunch. 

 BALTIMORE MARINA, A TIGHT SQUEEZE!

The skyline becomes more visible through the grey.  It’s beautiful!  Wow!  All sorts of different shapes and the shores are lined with marinas.  It’s such a mix or the old and new and lots of new construction going on.  We hail the marina and are given our slip assignment.  While we are getting instructions from the dock master when another boater breaks in on the radio and says that he has good visual of us as he’s right behind and that there’s a sailboat ahead of us that should have priority as they were there first!  What?  We were about 250 yards from the marina and still getting our lines and fenders ready. We could see a blue hulled sailboat ahead.  The dock master sounded a little surprised and confused and replied back that the sailboat could come in first then.  We were in no rush and certainly not wanting to get ahead of someone.  We didn’t hear the other boat hail the dock master on the radio.  So why didn’t they hail the dock master if they were so close to the entrance?  So why did the guy behind us think we were trying to push our way ahead of somebody?   I looked back and saw the unfriendly sail boater that thought we were being pushy.  His hailing port was Onancock, our favorite little town that we visited last year.  He disappeared off to some other marina.  We are never in a rush to beat someone to a marina or get in fast.  In fact we like to take our time and get things ready, to survey the situation.  It was really ridiculous that this guy got on the radio like that. The situation made us feel a little weird.

When we got in the marina, the slip was way narrow.  Larry too one look and yelled at me the “It’s too narrow!”  I yelled at the dock hand that “It’s too narrow!”  I asked him how wide it was and he said 17 or 18 feet wide.  Our beam is 18 and Larry yelled that we had an 18 foot beam and need something wider.  I yelled to the dock hand that we need at least 19 to 20 feet and then he changed what he said it was before and said it was 19 to 20 that we’d fit no problem.  I yelled this back to Larry and I could tell Larry was frustrated with the guy and the situation.  We wanted to back her in.  Larry stepped out and took another look at the slip and I guess decided he could make it.  After all we’d been in many more difficult situations than this last year.  He began to try to make the turn in this narrow part of the marina.  He told me to check the bow and told him it was very tight and not being able to see the stern didn’t know how much room he had back there.  He decided to head bow in instead figuring he didn’t have enough room to make the turn comfortably to put the stern in.  The winds were blowing just enough to make the whole situation a little uncomfortable but causing Larry no problem.  He managed to put her in the slip perfectly at least what I could see from the starboard side as I handed the lines to the two guys on the dock.  One guy that was there to see us about fixing our Tank watch gauge was helping.  He said we might want to get some fenders on the other side because we’re so tight in the slip.  We could barely squeeze on in and the fenders on the other size were about ready to pop.  It was very irritating that someone would put us in a slip like this but now that we were in that’s where we’re staying for the next couple days!  Not doing that again.   When we left the marina, the head Dock Master, Bill, discovered that this same guy over charged us for our slip and Bill wrote us a refund check for $240 when we checked out.

BALTIMORE WATERFRONT

Upon entering the harbor we could see that this is an active place with lots to do and see.  It’s also a town of many sounds, as we were washing the salt off the boat, two news helicopters were hovering over the harbor creating a terrible ruckus, and the huge bangs from the nearby construction site were a little bit much.  After the helicopters left, the sounds of the harbor boat horns, auto and truck traffic, train whistle and construction bangs just became part of the rumble of the city and were not annoying.   The weather was really cold and windy.  We got out whatever clothes we could to layer and stay warm.  We were glad we were at port and not out in the storm that has come through.

Well, Baltimore is not the city I remember when I visited as a kid with my dad about 40 years ago.  I had the good fortune of eating at the famous Hausman’s which was a tradition but remember everything else as rough and ugly.  Well, no more, at least by the waterfront.   It’s all rebuilt or renovated preserving the old in a nice way, and adding new wonderful architecture where the old has been removed.  There are so many things to see that’s it’s hard to choose.  It’s darn crowded too, mostly with school groups of young teenagers. 

USS Constellation

We were immediately drawn to the USS Constellation the last old full sail naval ship.  It’s over 150 years old and played an important role in our naval history.  It was fascinating.  You could explore the ship freely and it was fun to see the actual Captain’s Quarters and where he had a bathtub on the side of the boat to soak with a window view.  The Officers Quarters were more like nice jail cells with small wooden bunks and now I understand why the head is called the “head” as all the ship’s sailors had to crawl off the bow of the boat and relieve themselves at the “head” of the boat.   The simplistic quarters of sick bay was eye opening also when you imagine that common procedures on a boat at that time were amputations and teeth pulling.  They had the actual rustic instruments on display so you got the picture of what it must have been like to have the misfortune so spend anytime in “sick bay”.  The USS Constellation was the highlight of our trip.

There are many restaurants to choose from and we enjoyed a few but a couple evenings we were just so exhausted from seeing so much and walking so much that we just stayed on the boat and had a simple meal watching the red sky drop behind the truly amazing city skyline.

We were also fortunate to catch up with some friends that live on the outskirts of the city who drove in, who took us to lunch and gave us a tour of the city by car which really expanded our view on a large scale.  

There’s really so much to see here:  Art museums, Aquarium, the Oriole stadium, Museum of Industry, Johns Hopkins University, the stadiums, Fort McHenry, Civil War Museum, charming little neighborhood districts with fun and many times up scale restaurants and shops.  It was a fun place to be.

We were fortunate on the last day which happened to be Mother’s Day, to explore Fell’s Point and mingle with the locals at the Sunday flea market.  We stopped to have coffee and a roll at a dog friendly café and spend the next couple hours touring many fabulous restored historical brownstones in the waterfront area.  On this particular Sunday was their annual Home Tour.  Many people along the waterfront had opened their homes for the tour and some were particularly fascinating. 

In the afternoon after the Home Tour, we had brunch at the Joy America restaurant serving a Cuban brunch on the top of the Visionary Art Museum.  We had a great table overlooking the harbor and enjoyed all sorts of sea food, and other brunch items with a Cuban flair.  We walked off our lunch exploring the museum which was great.  It’s a showcase for untrained artists and has a true American Folk feel.  Some of the pieces are very clever and I found some more interesting than some of the art done by formally trained artists.  It was fresh, naïve, very clever and many were very talented.

Well, we didn’t see everything.  As we like to say sometimes “You have to always leave something to come back to see.”  That way you don’t leave and feel like you missed it.

 click on the camera for photos  

C&D CANAL

We enter the canal and pass a series of lights on posts like teepee shapes.  We’re following a tug pushing a barge and that is all the traffic we see.  The red lights aren’t lit so we are able to continue on .  If they are blinking red we cannot and means there is commercial traffic ahead coming our way and preventing our passage.  We would then need to contract canal control by radio and ask when we (small boats) could pass.  Or probably better yet as I think canal control will come on the radio, Channel 13 and announce the status of the vessel passing through the canal.  I don’t think they encourage people getting on the shipping channel unless it is an emergency.  They need to keep that line free.

The canal is lined with a berm on each side which is about 40 feet tall and is covered with trees and bushes.  There’s not much in the way of scenery but you are not bored as there is a pretty strong current inside the canal which keeps you on your toes.  We come to our first bridge.  They all have a clearance of 132 feet so no openings are required.  It’s one of six that we will pass under.  Zig and I are out on the bow of the bow and we see cars and trucks passing over and one truck honks and waves.  Ziggy and I wave back.  This first bridge that we pass under is the town of Chesapeake City.  It’s an old city and it where the pilots that get on and off the large vessels.  Any large foreign vessel coming through Delaware Bay or the Chesapeake through the C&D Canal must take on a pilot ot help guide them through.  This is the drop off point where the pilot from the Delaware side gets off and then a pilot from the Chesapeake gets on if the vessel is going East to West and vice versa. 

There is a long dock on the north side with a fuel dock and restaurant.  We could have tied up to the dock bu wet would be subject to wakes from the passing ships.  On the south side is Chesapeake City and there is a marina off the canal there for the water is too shallow for our draft so we have no option but to go 10 or so more miles up the canal to the more protected Summit Marina with a deeper draft.  Chesapeake City is supposed to be cute with nice restaurants and shops but we have to pass it by. 

We see a dark solid line vertically across the chart plotter.  It’s the border line between Delaware and Maryland.  We are officially in Delaware now.  Larry’s fighting a little current of about a knot and a half.  We’re about an hour away from slack water which should be good for getting in the marina ten miles away.  I notice we are being pulled left and right from the prop wash of the tug ahead of us.  He must be about ¼ mile ahead of us and the strength from his props are having a strong effect.  It’s amazing. 

We’re coming to another bridge and we can see a railroad bridge ahead.  All the bridges have a 132 foot clearance except for one that is 42 but it is open most of the time.  The second bridge looks like a railroad bridge and it is up right now.  That must be the one that the book is describing.  Our marina for the night should be on the East side of that bridge.

It was an easy marked entrance to the marina and we have nice floating docks with plenty of width unlike what we had at Baltimore.  Nothing much here, well, there’s nothing here except a dock office, marina slips and a restaurant that doesn’t look like it’s open for the season yet.  We have a view of the old railroad bridge from our slip and we’re happy as clams.  We arrived about 2:00 and have the afternoon to just hang out and relax which is unusual for us.  We look off into the woods from the bow of the boat and the weather is just about perfect.  We’re surrounded by a nature preserve so it is pristine quiet.

We put in our position report and sit back to enjoy the rest of the day.

We’re up early thinking we’ll leave about 7:00 to reach Cape May on a good tide current which is at the lower tip of New Jersey and the bottom of Delaware Bay which opens out onto the Atlantic.   I take Zig for a walk and notice the tide is really down.   Larry says to check with the office about the depth at the entrance bar to the marina.

The office was closed but I saw a young grey haired guy taking his huge black great dane to relieve itself. I asked if he knew the depth at the entrance bar.  He said it was 6 feet, and that the marina  depth is pretty much 6 feet everywhere.   I’m thinking to myself that we draw 6 so it must  be deeper than that as we came in with water below us.  I asked if he thought we could get out now, he looked at the shore and said “maybe if you leave RIGHT NOW!”

I went back to the boat and relayed what the guy said and Larry checked the tide charts and decided to wait about an hour and a half until the tide raises about 10 inches.

So we walked the docks looking at the boats here and waited.  This marina is a good hurricane hole.  When Hurricane Isabel came through and created havoc everywhere they squeezed 60 more boats in here than what its capacity is.

 It’s so strange.  As I sat in the pilot house waiting for the tide to rise I watched the mud shoreline.  I’ve got a visual on a rock that I’m watching to see when the water will rise and cover it.  Larry decides to take some trash up to the dumpster.  As he leaves, the water starts to rise, fairly quickly.  It goes from 9’-4” to 9’-9” in a couple minutes!  My rock that I’ve been watching has disappeared under the water.  I’m amazed at how fast the flood is and what a struggle this will be getting out of here with this strong current.  The boat is wallowing back and forth in the slip.  By the time Larry got back, about 10 minutes later, the water level is back down to 9’-3” and the rock is there again.  Guess a freighter or large ship must have gone by out in the canal.  We can’t see the canal from our marina but it’s interesting that we can feel the traffic go by from the constant filling and emptying of the water.  The small debri of leaves and what not that floats on the surface just circles around the marina giving you another false sense of the flood.

We had such a quiet night last night that I almost couldn’t sleep.  After the noise of Baltimore Harbor it was almost unnatural.  I could only hear the tick of the clock, Larry breathing, the frig charging ever so often and Ziggy growling if I moved my legs in bed.  Then ever so often through the night I thought that I could hear a ship going by, it was a low muffled sound like the sound of a distant highway.  Then it was dead calm and quiet.

We waited at the dock from 7:00 to 9:00 for the tide to change.  Finally we decided to leave.  It only increased in depth 4 inches after two hours.  During this two hours we talked to a couple other locals.  They all had a different story.  Another guy said there should be plenty of depth all the way out except the last dock “I Dock” and it will get skinny there.  Another guy said to make sure we continue out at an angle to the center of the canal channel as the corner where the light signaling commercial vessel traffic has shoaled quite a bit.  Said it was best to get out in the center of the channel when the depth is 40 and then make your circle turn.

We left the dock and proceeded very slowly.  I didn’t pull in the fenders as my job was to watch the depth sounder and tell Larry if it goes under 3 feet.  Well it was a mix of depths all the way out from 9’ -8” at our slip to 5, 6, 4, 3 and 2 and the lowest was 1’-1”.  We made it out easily and knew if we got stuck the tide was rising and it would be a matter of minutes to lift us off the mud.    We could have made it at 7:00 AM but that would have given us 6” below in certain spots and not knowing the contour of the bottom and what might be under there we think it was on the safe side to wait for a few more inches.

We had no traffic whatsoever coming out the canal.  We heard an interesting discourse over the radio between canal control and a tug.  He was coming up the Delaware River preparing to enter the canal.  Canal control was getting all the specifics of his load.  It was fascinating listening them and there drawls. 

Well we plopped out into the wide Delaware River and in the distance we see a huge stack puffing out huge clouds of steam from a nuclear power plant.  It is amazingly large and we see it for quite a long time as we head down the river.  It overpowers the landscape except for a couple large freighters that compeit for it’s visual attention. 

On the West shore which is Delaware, in the distance we pass a few small villages and clusters of small vacation homes over looking the brown Delaware river to the nuclear plant.  The Eastern shore is the New Jersey shore and there is nothing lining the shores except huge electrical poles and wires from the nuclear plant.  It’s a dreary sight but I feel like I can sniff the Atlantic ahead of us like a dog.  I’m surprised at how excited I am to greet the Atlantic Ocean again.  I’m ready to leave the shallow waters of the Chesapeake and crab cakes, though I loved every minute.  I’m ready for the next adventure.

The current is coming against us and were down in speed a couple knots from what we normally run.  When we were in the canal we had the current with us and we were running at 12 knots!  That must be slow to most power boaters but its fast for us.  We are a fuel conserving vessel and that allows us to go long distances but slowly.

We begin to see open stretch of ahead of us, it looks like the ocean but we still have 4 hours to go so it’s just the Delaware Bay widening.  What a feeling to know the open ocean is ahead and freedom from the confinds of buoys, markers, shallow depths.  Free again!

I sure can understand why sailors notoriously hate power boats.  In the upper reaches of the Chesapeake we’ve seen some pretty rude boaters, speeding by and creating humongous wakes.  It’s especially annoying when you’re in the galley and fixing a nice lunch and enjoyed the smooth calm weather and then in a moment you’re lunging to catch things as they fling across the counter from speedy boater.  We were surprised how many just cut in front of your path and in front of barges and freighters.  Funny as I write this I can hear some chatter on the radio about a boat creating a huge wake.  The guy suffering from the wake is yelling on the radio “Slow down!!! Do you realize what your wake is doing?!!!!”  The other boater called back and apologized which I thought was very unusual.  We later heard that he was apologizing to the US Coast Guard.  No wonder.  We experienced the same behavior on the Delaware River side. 

It’s a long haul down this Delaware Bay.  It has a reputation for being difficult and choppy depending on the winds and current.  It’s like a long straight highway heading out to sea.  Something like driving across the desert with wide open spaces on each side.  Ahead you watch the oncoming traffic and follow one ahead and watch for what comes behind.   Every so often a huge freighter will peak it’s bow up over the horizon and slowly grow in mega size over the period of an hour before he comes along beside us and we grow in tense anticipation of his 7 foot plus wake that we maneuver up and over and down several times as they always seem to leave about three big wakes. 

Occasionally through the binoculars we can see a few scattered cottages on shore a long distance away and it looks like a long stretch of beach on the Delaware side.  We are much farther of the New Jersey side so we can’t see clearly on that shore.

CAPE MAY

click on the camera for photos  

WE are near the Cape May Canal entrance.  It’s a narrow cut that saves boaters from having to go around Cape May Point to enter the main channel on the Atlantic.  As we approach the entrance, we see several sports fishing boats speeding behind us and pass as we enter the channel.  They don’t care about creating wakes for us.  We pass a dredger working right in the center of the channel near the large ferry boats that take people and cars from Cape May to Lewes on the Delaware side. 

As we pass the dredger the waters get extremely shallow, at one point we had 1” on the sonar.  It was ridiculous!  We kept going at this point because there was no other option.  As we got about a third of the way through the canal it got deeper.  The dock master at Utches assured us the depths would be enough. 

Near the end of the canal there is a railroad bridge with two very narrow openings, one on each side.  You have to go through the opening on the north side because the book says the other has low wires overhead that you can’t see and obstructions below the water.

We are given specific instructions on how to get in to the marina as there is a dredged entrance that isn’t marked that we will have to follow.  There is a small catamaran ahead of us so we can hear them on the radio.  They have twice hailed fast boats creating wakes for them threw the canal.  They sound very tense and frustrated by them.   The instructions to get into the marina are to come to the first red marker as we leave the canal, make a hard right and we should see the bulkhead of the marina.  We are to proceed forward, keeping 30 feet off the bulkhead until we reach the small lighthouse at the end of the bulkhead and then make a hard right into the marina. 

We can hear the catamaran on the radio again, very tense again, confused about the entrance and where they are to go again.  The dock master calmly reports the same directions and assures them to turn in right after the light house, keeping it to their starboard.

It was our turn,  as you follow the bulkhead keeping 30 feet off we can see the small decorative lighthouse but straight ahead is a dock that projects out very close to the lighthouse with a tow tug behind it.  It’s an optical illusion as you feel like you are going to run straight into the dock.  You have to have total faith in the instructions or you will flub.  Once you get to the light house you have to make a hard, hard, starboard turn into the narrow opening to get in the marina.  It’s almost like being blind is the only way I can describe it.  You can not do anything that seems like you should do, just follow the instructions like a blind person.

We got in no problems, but it was nerve wracking trusting this stranger with the depths and turns and narrow openings. 

The dock they put us is right by the boat lift and office.  It’s a working yard also.  The docks are about the most rustic yet even though they were advertising, floating docks which I love as I have none of those difficult posts to try to loop the ropes around and I can never remember which way to make the loop to get it to hold.  On the port side is a bulk head with old posts and on the right side if the floating dock with no cleats just a couple small square posts that stick up about a foot.  A guy is there to help us.  There is a bunch of debri in the slip, mostly reeds, not trash.  We finally get her tied in but the back half of the boat is hanging out.  There was no room to turn her around to back her in but we’re in and that’s the most important thing. 

We are welcomed with a nice bag of gifts which is a first for any marina that I can think of.  It included a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers, biscotti’s and other little goodies.  I guess they figure anybody that can get in here deserves a reward.

I talk Zig out for a walk while Larry hoses the boat down.  The area where we are is not too exciting.  There is a busy road out front and the drivers race back and forth.  There is however a place that looks interesting for dinner tonight and that is the Lobster Market Restaurant.

We head on over for dinner, and it is a large place, been there since 1922, and has lots of fresh fish  and a fish market to buy to take.  We had an OK dinner but I wonder when the vegetable du jour is boiled cabbage with shredded carrots and mushrooms?  The other sides to choose from were stewed tomatos, or apple sauce.  What?  Oh well, we slept well that night and were anxious to see what Cape May was all about.  Our friends that we met last summer that we boated with for several weeks never stopped talking about the place so we want to see it.  That will be tomorrow because tonight it’s sleep, sleep, sleep.

Well, we awoke our first morning in Cape May.  We didn’t know what to expect because our dock was a little funky and the nearby area didn’t seem to be too interesting.  But we were determined to find the charm.  We headed south in the direction of town and the farther away from the dock the cuter it got.  The streets are lined with charming Victorian houses and cottages with wonderful ginger bread, artfully painted with several colors to their palettes.  The cherry trees were out in blossom with huge gorgeous plump clusters of blossoms that were lightly dropping from the trees and blowing in the wind onto the streets and sidewalks like snow.  The ground was literally pink with blossoms.  They like their tulips here and they were in full bloom lining white picket fences and announcing entrances to B&Bs.   The lavender was blooming, along with purple wisteria and the white and pink dog wood trees were laced out in bloom.  It was a fairy land.

We found the pedestrian mall of the old town.  They blocked off the street to cars.  It was filled with ice cream, fudge, vacation clothing stores and what you would imagine in an old timey vacation town on the eastern seaboard.  There were many restaurants with outside seating though it was still too cold to sit out. 

We managed to find a café that let us sit on their enclosed patio with Ziggy and we had a nice lunch.  We tired ourselves out and decided that tomorrow we were getting the bikes out to really see this place.

The next day armed with our bikes we rode up and down the streets admiring the architecture.  I’m amazed that this little town is so intact with its old architecture.  As you near the beach promenade the houses get bigger and more elaborate.  It’s like they had a contest to see how ornate they could make their places.  The colors of the houses sometimes have four and five colors artfully and meticulously done.  Many have colored striped awnings shielding the windows from the sun.  The gardens are full of flowers in full bloom, pansies, and others I don’t know the name of.  The flowers are all color coordinated to match the paint colors on the houses.  Most of the big flamboyant houses have become B&B’s or Inns and have wonderful hand painted signs hanging out front on posts.  All the house and inns have big front porches with rows of wooden rocking chairs or painter wicker furniture.  It’s truly a site to see.  Even the bank and fire station are painted and decorated.  It’s like a Disneyland but real.

On the East side of the point of Cape May and the town is a long boardwalk (well concrete) with a nice beach and on the opposite of the road that parallels are are some really impressive old hotels and Inns.  The biggest is the Congress built in 1812. 

BUT – there’s one problem with this place!

DOG UNFRIENDLY

With all this whimsy, color and flowers, there are so many warning signs posted everywhere you turn.  They are all rules and regulations.  Many are concerning dogs.  You CAN NOT walk a dog on the boardwalk or promenade period.  YOU CAN NOT walk a bike either for that matter.  You CAN NOT  walk a dog or bike downtown in the pedestrian mall, period!  I asked someone a bout it and they said the town is not dog friendly and they are firm about it.  We talked to several of the store owners about it and they said they didn’t like the rule because they all like dogs but that’s the way the town is.  They have rules for everything.  Walking, standing, noise, parking, it goes on and on,  It’s like someone has too much time on their hands that they feel they have to regulate everyone so much.  Hey, isn't this supposed to be fun place?  I think it would be much better if they would severely penalize people that don’t control and clean up with their dogs rather than just ban people and their dogs completely.  We felt like criminals.  Many boaters have animals and we like to shop, and eat, and sit on benches, and mosst important to the town, we spend money too.  I’m all for fining those that don’t respect other people’s property too. 

So today, to have lunch, we actually had to order some food to go and eat outside of the walking mall in anl area the storekeepker said we might be able to without a problem but she wasn’t sure.  She was very apologetic and i hope embarrasssed.   We felt like outsiders and felt discriminated against.  After lunch, we thought this was just so rediculous we walked down the mall with Ziggy and our bikes anyway.  We thought the heck with them, let's see them come and give us a ticket to tell us to leave.  Zig sat in the bike basket and we walked the bikes.  Two rules broken!!  A tour group of older people all came to see Ziggy and talked to us, shopkeepers came out to see Ziggy and wanted to pet him.  So what's the deal here?  It seems like a friendly town.   Who the heck is making up these awful rules here at Cape May?

 click on the camera for photos