Hike #144; Cape May Point

 Hike #144

Hike 144

On the shore

8/21/4

 

Cathy and I were having our five year anniversery, and neither of us had been to Cape

May, so we decided to go away for the weekend and pay it a visit. On the way, we ended

up doing a nice beach scouting hike, the first beach hike of significant distance I would

ever do.

Cape May Lighthouse

Though not connected with anything I had done yet, I still enjoyed this section a lot, and

planned on eventually connecting to this one. We parked at the State Park at Cape May

Point and headed out to the water.

Bunker from Cape May Lighthouse

View from Cape May Lighthouse

View from Cape May Lighthouse

Cape May Point

Cape May Point

Cape May Point

Audobon Society Trail at Cape May

Audobon Society trail at Cape May

Concrete Ship

Concrete Ship slowly deteriorating

Sunset Beach, Cape May

We walked down to the beach, and out to the water, then turned back toward the buildings

there. We had waited in the car a bit, as it was raining, and I was very intent on getting out.

We made it our first point to go up the Cape May Lighthouse. A long white spiral staircase

took us to the top where there was a fantastic view of the ocean, as well as the freshwater

marshes within close proximity. There was also an old bunker out in the water. A museum

on the property told us that the old bunker used to be open for tours, but that it was now

closed due to it’s moving out into the ocean. I wanted to dry to go in, but a ranger warned

me that it would not be adviseable if I did not have knee high boots to wade through the

seagull shit! I took his advise!

We went through the little visitor’s center, seeing pictures of an original lighthouse which

sat further out on the beach, but was taken down, it’s foundation washed away.

We made our way out to the beach, and decided to walk northeast as far as we could. We

headed along the coast, walking through the sand, and sometimes out on wave breakers. We

were able to continue on the beach until we got to Navy base land where we had to turn

back. We headed up to the next road through a private beach access, and walked the road

back toward the edge of the beach. We walked on the sand a bit, but headed in a few times

to see the sites and buildings. There was one bar we went in; I think I had a beer. I don’t

remember if we had lunch. I think Cathy did for sure.

We walked along the interior side of the beach where the roads turned inland, and soon

turned into a small trail section, which I believe is owned by the Audubon Society,

following it out to a main road, then turning back toward the beach. After a short distance,

the clouds grew very thick, and Cathy wanted to get back to the road. We turned back to the

road, and by the time we got there it had started pouring down rain. We made our way

along the roads from there to the car, and waited out the rain before we got out and went

back to the water. We went to the furthest south point we could find, then turned back.

Before heading out, we stopped and visited an experimental Concrete ship which had been

beached off Cape May years ago, and was now broken and sinking off into the ocean. We

searched the beach for “Diamonds in the Rough”, eroded down rocks looking diamond like

in the bay of the Delaware at Sunset Beach. We had a dinner at a restaurant there before

heading out.