The Cape May Canal

One of my favorite places anywhere, and one that is unique to Cape May, is the Cape May Canal. Some of my earliest memories are at the canal as we used to go swimming there before it was widened and deepened to accommodate bigger boats and more boat traffic. My father prefered swimming in the canal over swimming in the ocean, because he could swim across and back. My swimming skills never advanced that far: I've got a powerful doggie paddle and I can frolic with the best of them, but I never really developed a good crawl stroke. These days, it would be impossible to swim across the canal any day that the water is warm enough because of the increased boat traffic, and there's really no place to hang out since the strip of beach went away when it was widened. This video shows boats in the canal with dredging going on in the background. I love how Beethoven timed the music so that the climax happens when the boats pass each other. Genius.

The canal was dug in less than a year during World War II because of the potential threat of German U-boats going north through the Delaware Bay into the Delaware River and taking over the important ports of Camden and Philadelphia. Fort Miles, strategically placed on Cape May and Cape Henlopen (the Twin Capes), guarded the bay, and the canal was dug to give mosquito boats easy access to the bay from the base on the ocean side. Cape May's part of Fort Miles is now the Coast Guard Training Center, and Cape Henlopen's is now part of Cape Henlopen State Park. This photo was taken from the fire tower in the park looking down at the restored barracks of Fort Miles. If you look closely in the parking lot, you can see my red MINI!

The canal is important today not only because it is part of the Intracoastal Waterway, but because the Cape May-Lewes Ferry docks there. This ferry has always been important to me because it is just a year younger than I am and I have always heard its whistles from our house. During the summer when the ferries make more crossings for summer travelers, the whistle is more frequent. When I walk on the bay as I have all my life with family, friends, dogs, or alone, the canal is the spot where I take a break on the rocks, maybe watch a ferry come in or go out, and then turn around. This routine is fundamental to my existence as it's one of the few things that has stayed constant. This photo was taken on a baywalk, and you can see a ferry off in the distance:

My perception of the ferry, though, has changed over the years. It used to be a rarity that I would be on the ferry. I was usually watching it from the shore. But occasionally, if my parents and I went south on a trip, we would take the ferry to save time and driving. Even my dog, Bambi, could walk around on the ferry, but not in the cabin. It was exciting even though it wasn't much fancier than a bus then. As a child I was familiar with the Staten Island Ferry, and the Cape May-Lewes wasn't even as nice as those! Now the ferries are much nicer and more comfortable.

We never explored Lewes, though. I had a kind of xenophobic picture of Lewes, Delaware, until recent years when curiosity got the best of me. The ferry began running shuttles buses to take ferry passengers to points of interest on either side. My mother and I were curious about the outlet malls in Rehoboth, and ventured onto the ferry as foot passengers to see what this was all about. We had a ball shopping and enjoyed the cruise back home after we had shopped all day. After Mom was gone, I started to explore the historic parts of Lewes and Cape Henlopen State Park, and soon began to write articles for the ferry's free magazine, Twin Capes Traveller. Here's the red Mini on the ferry heading over to Lewes for a research trip.

These days, I've come to know Lewes, Cape Henlopen State Park and Rehoboth Beach as extensions of my home base of Cape May, and I love writing about their unique features almost as much as I enjoy sharing Cape May's distinctive personality.

PNWA conference

Hello from Seattle! I'm here for the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association summer conference, and I'm busy beyond belief. I registered for this conference because my essay was chosen as a finalist in the Adult Short Topic--Essay divison and a quick look at the presentations and benefits of attending convinced me to fly to Seattle. In preparing for this event and now living it, the contest has faded to the background and I'm looking forward to meeting an editor and an agent: both seem like good matches for my work. The presentations are also very interesting--enough so that I'm not tempted to play hookie to go see more of Seattle or take a nap. (There's a three-hour time difference that I'm coping with reasonably well.)

Books are the thing here. Hardly anyone is talking about articles. Romance, Fantasy, and Thriller writers are everywhere and I haven't met any Travel Essayists yet. Just about everyone is interested in trading book ideas, and this is good practice for stating our ideas concisely. Mine, of course, changes everytime I say it, but it is basically an essay about Cape May, NJ, through the months and seasons narrated by me, one of the last baby boomers to enter middle age. Everyone who visits Cape May knows that it has a rich Victorian heritage, but most don't know about all the other historical, cultural, and natural histories that go along with the region. People I talk to who are familiar with Cape May are always surprised when I tell them that the area was first settled by whalers in the 1600s, it was a prime target during WWII because of its proximity to major ports up the Delaware River, and that it hosts the World Series of Birding. So that's my quick description and it seems to interest most people I talk to. Whether it interests the agent I meet tomorrow remains to be seen. That's the Cape May Point Lighthouse above, by the way. (I don't have any pictures of Seattle!)

The article writing doesn't stop while I'm in Seattle. I just submitted revisions to my cranberry article for Edible Jersey late last night, and my World War II at the Twin Capes and Holidays at the Twin Capes articles were submitted to Twin Capes Traveller (the ferry magazine) hours before I left New Jersey. I'm not doing much actual writing while in Seattle, but I'm gathering steam for when I return home.

It's almost 6am and I've been up for an hour already. I should take a nap since I have to be coherent and charming until 10:30 tonight. I'm dealing with the time difference reasonably well.