Day 13 To Cape May: Whale Watching

I woke at 6:30 after a wonderful night’s sleep, but my first priority was to wash my hair, after which it was breakfast with Charles, Christa, Christa’s mum Kate and grand- daughter Sascha. I made some sandwiches for lunch, while we waited for grand- daughters Jenny and Raeli to join us.

We set off at 9:30 as arranged down the freeway/ tollway to Cape May past acres of natural timber stands of a special pine tree which are only found in this area. Lots of bog areas. This area grows cranberries, blueberries and tomatoes. A little roadwork along the way and one bathroom stop, but traffic flowed well and it took about 1 hour and 45 mins to get to our destination.

The town of Cape May is just delightful, preserving many of the original styled Victorian homes in rainbow colours. We stopped at the lighthouse and took photos arriving just before our ship was due to set off.

It was a perfect day for whale watching as far as the weather was concerned. Not too hot /cold and a very low swell. The captain’s commentary was excellent and after passing through the canal we were out to the Atlantic Ocean past the WW2 Watch tower for U-boats, the original concrete boat- a success but eventually sunk, the lighthouse and beyond. Not too far out we were met with a pod of dolphins which kept our cameras very busy. Dolphins live for 40-45 years in the wild and 5 in captivity! We ended up seeing hundreds of dolphins all trying to catch the schools of fish, but no whales. Despite this, it was a fabulous experience and when I checked my photos I got one great one of the dolphins.

Eventually it was time to return to the harbour and take another look around the town. Some more beautiful old homes and we went down to the beach area. (Did you know they pay to go on the beach in New Jersey - $8!!!) But this was a free beach- filled with umbrellas and banana loungers. The sand was almost yellow but the water was a muddy colour. Maybe this was because they were dredging further out?

The grand children on the beach

We drove home along the same route, until nearly the end when we went via some back roads. It is just a delightful area, with so many trees and natural vegetation. Oma had dinner ready and we ate soon after arriving. GF spaghetti for me, bonus. The girl’s mother arrived just as we were finishing our meal.

After helping to clean up, I sat down and began to process the photos. I was really surprised to find one excellent dolphin one. I deleted many photos, the tip of a dorsal fin is not exactly riveting even if there are 20 fins. Problems with the second camera downloading, but solved with time. Finished yesterday’s diary and uploaded the blog and began on today. While I was doing that Charles tried to get tickets for tomorrow for the Statue of Liberty- all sold out so he has changed the timetable to Philadelphia tomorrow and the statue on Thursday? He showed me around his huge “basement” before we retired for bed. I just had to finish today’s diary. 10:45