Make a right at Exit Zero

Windy, cool Sunday morning.

Clams are safe on Sundays--gummint says so, and it's getting too chilly to argue. Good day to hunker down.

I still have yet to here from Jack at Exit Zero --it's a fun magazine, dirt cheap, and available almost everywhere south of Rio Grande (the Cape May version, not Texas). It's as edgy as a magazine indebted to its advertisers can be. (Well, the staff members do make funny faces in their bios.)


In between my usual misinformation about the critters here in Cape May, I'll toss out thoughts on various activities around the area. Mostly the good, occasionally the ugly, and pretty much always the cheap.

Exit Zero bumped up their subscription to $40/year for those not fortunate enough to live close enough to pick up their free copies.

I'm still free.

Leslie took the picture.

News from the jetty

Mid-November is here. The stiff southern breeze threatens to push the Delaware Bay over its banks.

The high tide edge is littered with horseshoe crab shells and whelk egg cases. The cases look like Japanese lanterns designed by Alexander Calder, but even he could not have captured the symmetry.

Life at the edge of the sea is good.

While tossing clams at spotted hake today, a bird came to visit. Unlike the old gull who sneaks into my bait bucket, this guy had no ulterior motives. He looked like an overgrown junco with bright yellow legs and a stretched out beak. In between stabs at tiny critters on the rocks, he'd eyeball me, more curious than fearful.

I saw my first purple sandpiper.

(I have no idea why they're called "purple"--not a blotch of violet seen, nor why they are sandpipers--this one obviously preferred rocks to sand.)

Just off the end of the jetty, easily flying into a 20+ knot south wind, were large birds that looked like geese designed for supersonic flight. The jet black wing tips gave them away--northern gannets.

Two more lifers for me. Plenty of others, too, if I had a clue had to identify them.

***

The spotted hake are still hanging by the jetty. I caught a couple today, both on the same cast. The striped bass fishermen use bigger fish for bait, true, but the ling are good, they're plentiful, and they fill up the belly as well as a bass steak.

The tide was ideal for clamming, the weather was not. A tornado watch kept the kayaks in the garage.

I did rake for a bit off Harpoon Henry's--we stumbled across a cherry stone quahog there last week. Perhaps another clammer tossed it there to throw me off the trail. Watching the sunset while chilling thigh deep in the bay mid-November is a Saturday well spent, even without clams.

***

The sun barely rises 30 degrees above the horizon now. The few basil plants left hold few leaves, even fewer after I grazed today. I plucked a gnarly red tomato off the vine, probably the last vine ripened mater of the season. Our last decent eggplant split this week.

The kale will be the last hurrah.

Winter is coming.

The purple sandpiper taken by Andrew Easton; the sunset by Leslie.

M & B Love 4ever

Near the end of the north side of the ferry terminal is the only graffiti I see on the whole jetty.

M & B
Love
4 Ever
7-25-07

Are you still together?

Clamming in November

I got a hankering for clams, and paddled over to Richardson Sound to one of my favorite place in the universe.

Slate gray sky above, slate gray water below. The water's still warm enough to wade in, and the tide was creeping in over the clam bed.

The few splashes of color--a jumping bluefish, a few scoters scooting by--looked pixellated against the dull light.

I was mostly alone, at least by human standards. A couple of turtles watched me paddle, and a couple of loons called to others, warning of my approach.

I am (finally) getting competent with the clam rake. My hands can now "feel" the texture of the mud as I comb the bottom. I still dredge up a stone now and then, but the ones that fool me now at least are shaped like clams.

I scratched up enough clams for dinner, and a few more for my Auntie Beth, then paddled home.

It was a gorgeous morning.

***

Clamming lets you see things you forget you care about. Clams are in no hurry to escape; the only urgency is the rising tide.

You can watch the tides rise and fall. Literally. If you take the time.

I clam at the edge of water. The edge rises perceptibly as I work. The edge's personality changes over the couple of hours I rake.

It creeps up stealthily, smoothly, for a few minutes, then takes tiny staccato steps for a few more. It pauses. It retreats for an instant, then surges a bit more.

The edge does not define the tide. It's jerky journey up towards the debris left by the last high tide reminds me what we cannot know.

***

Tonight we are eating red hake for dinner. My son and I caught a few yesterday on the ferry jetty.

Slaughtering fish is not easy for us, nor should it be. We can try to minimize slaughter by calling fish "lesser" animals. We can pretend no pain is involved. I did not raise my son to pretend.

Before we took the fish home, we made sure we had enough for dinner. If not, we release them.

Life is messy. We take great care in school where I teach to put things in boxes and categories, to feed into the great mythology we have created, a mythology that now precludes children from knowing where their food originates. We keep biology clean.

Life is messy. We're part of a huge morass of energetic goo that replicates and plays and consumes and replicates and plays and consumes some more. Life involves fluids and combustion and not just a little bit of mystery.

Time to roll up the sidewalks

I forgot to mention this last week.

We live in a town where they roll up the sidewalks. Literally.

Not the concrete ones, of course. The gray plastic slats that lead to the Delaware Bay from Beach Avenue are put away each winter.

Winter's coming. The dolphins are headed south. The sidewalks are tucked away.

I love summer in Cape May. I might like winter even more.

Another day in paradise

Last night we watched the sun settle into the Delaware Bay from the deck of Harpoon Henry's. Back in June, we had to look to the right--now the sun sets to the left (perhaps foretelling this week's election).

Mr. Henry looked quite dapper, and quite happy. Our summer ends. His summer begins.

***

The very local fishing report

The lingcod (red spotted hake) are still running by the ferry jetty. A few fisherman came by and tossed chunks of herring at the muddy water, trying to coax a striper, using bait not much smaller than the lingcod I caught, but left without a hit.

I landed a half-dozen lingcod using clam.

We did see some nice stripers brought in for the 8th Annual South Jersey Big Bass Open while kayaking by the marina. The weights were announced via a booming speaker system, and the South Jersey marina was draped with banners of all sorts.

I guess if you pay $300 to enter a contest, you want some fanfare.

Seems a shame folks need more than one fish if one weighs over 45#, but a $10,000 top prize can take the sport out of sportfishing. We did see one boat toss a live (we hope) striper back in the water after weighing.

***

The very local mucking report

At the end of the very short Harbor Lane (just off Texas Avenue as you hit the island) is a great mucking spot. Park in Harbor Cove, then jump off the bulkhead. Be wary of glass, and don't climb down if you don't think you can get back up.

Yesterday's prize find?
The Cheeseburger in Paradise, a sailboat hailing from Beaufort, North Carolina, was stuck in the mud, waiting for the next high tide.