Vorlon Whispers: Sunday, September 9, 2012

September 10, 2012

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Don got here around 8:45. We left for our lighthouse tour. Our first stop was in Bowers Beach, DE. There is a lighthouse there out in the water. You are supposed to be about to see it from the concrete bulkhead. We didn't see any bulkhead nor did we see any lighthouse. There were a few things out on the horizon but we were unable to tell if they were ships or what. I asked a young man who was on the beach with his daughter. He thought it was off of South Bowers Beach which jutted a little further out into the water but to ger there, we had to go back to the expressway, drive way south and then drive back northeast so we decided to skip it.

Next stop was Cape Henlopen, DE which is between Lewes, DE where the Cape May Ferry connection is and Rehobeth Beach. Cape Henlopen is a state park and very nice. We came to a World War I or II tower and climbed up for a view of the area. We saw two harbor lighthouses that marked the channel for the ferry terminal. We were quite a distance from them so we drove a little closer. We came to a hawk watch area and climbed the stairs to the platform. We were further away from viewing the lighthouses so we drove on. We came to another parking area and followed the path to the beach. We were able to get a good view the red lighthouse but would have to walk a distance to get a better view of the white one. The beach area was roped off as it was a nesting area for the shore birds. We took some pictures of it throught the dunes.

Next stop was Fenwick Island which is a long Island beginning in Delaware , south of Rehobeth at the Indian River Inlet to the end of Ocean City, MD. The Fenwick Lighthouse is locaterd on the north side of the border between DE and MD. We had to park on the MD side where the street is for the entrance to the lighthouse. I took a photo of the marker with one foot in DE and the other in MD. We were greeted by a volunteer who told us the history of the area and the lighthouse. He said his wife knew much more about it and he was filling in for her. We were unable to climb the lighthouse because of the insurance regulations in DE and much more stringent than other states. They needed to have a person certified in CPR on every level of the lighthouse and the top was not enclosed to keep unstable people from jumping off. They are working on getting the problem resolves. The volunteer showed us photos of the lighthouse keepers and one was an ancestor of his.

We stopped in Ocean City to grab a burger at Burger King. For a fast food resturant, the service was very slow. We continued on our journey across the Delmarva Pensula to St. Michaels. It was an hour and a half drive. St. Michaels is an historic tourist town located on the Miles River on one of the many necks that jut out into the Chesapeake. They have a Maritime Museum there with one of the screwpile lighthouses as the main attraction. It is called a screw pile as it has what looks like a giant drill bit on the bottom of each pile that drills into the bottom of the bay and gives more stability to the piles. It also prevents the ice in winter from lifting the pilings up at high tide and crashing them down at low tide. We toured through the many buildings they have there. They showed all the different kinds of vessels that were used on the bay from Native American dug out logs to crab and oyster vessels, and steamships. They also had examples of the crab and oyster processing. We were still a little full from lunch so we went to the Crab Claw Resturant on the dock and got a lump crabmeat appetizer and a glass of ice tea. It is like a shrimp contail but with crabmeat. After we ate, we began out journey back to Chesapeake City. It took a little over an hour.