Somewhere in Cape May

Oysters, comets, and sea urchins

The bay receded at mid-day. The oysters were no faster than they were last week, and a couple dozen ended up in our pot of stew.

Leslie and I walked along Higbee's Beach on a gorgeous February afternoon. We found Auntie Beth walking along the edge of the bay, as good a place as any to find Auntie Beth, should you be fortunate enough to have an Auntie Beth.

We also founds scads of purple sea urchins and blue claw crabs tossed up on the beach. I suspect that they wiggled out of the mud when the shallows warmed up a bit a week ago, then found (too late) that February thaws are as fleeting as summer romance.

A loon greeted us form no more than 10 yards off shore. A dead scoter, its garish beak lit up by the February sun, lay on the edge of the high tide line as though sleeping.

This week's list:

*Sea urchins, sea urchins, and more sea urchins
*Blue claw crabs, with colors that rivaled those of our dead scoter's beak
*Razor clams
*Whelk egg cases
*A lady's slipper shell
*Oysters
*Quahog shells (but no live clams yet)
*Sand pipers and gulls of various persuasions
*Peter Dunne? (I was too shy to ask, but he had a kick-butt spotting scope at Sunset Beach)
*Horseshoe crabs, freshly dead
*A couple of dead mitten crabs (they're here)
*A Jonah crab
*Scattered carapaces of spider crabs
*A few angel wings
*More than a few live oysters tossed on the beach
*Mussels (alway, always mussels)
*The largest starfish I have seen in Jersey

No jellyfish this week. No purple sandpipers. No schools of fish on the surface.



March returns next weekend. The fish will be moving soon.

February oystering

Still February, but the grackles have returned.
Still February, but a couple of blueclaw crabs wandered out of the mud a bit early.
Still February, but the sun is steep enough to warm the flats at low tide.

Saturday I got my nephew a shellfish license--$2/year for the peanut crowd.

I taught him the rules (hard clams got to be at least 1 1/2", no shellfishing on Sundays, and never clam when the sun is below the horizon).

We wandered over to the bay as the sun was setting on its edge--the tide was falling, but most of the oysters were still protected by the frigid waters. Keith wandered in for a moment, but just a moment. The oysters on the end of the jetty would live for another day.

We pried off a couple dozen oysters--one broke in half when we harvested it, so I sucked it down right at the jetty, warning Keith not to do the same (but wouldn't tell his mother if he did).

Yesterday we rolled them in corn meal, flour, and whatever spices we could find. I worried that he might not like them--I should have known better.

Fresh oysters are hard to beat.

Later in the evening, bellies full of oysters, we practiced for his vocabulary quiz. I'm a public school teacher, just so you know my biases. Still, I'd be the first to admit that nothing on his vocabulary list could match the education he got from the Delaware Bay.

A man could do worse than spend his days watching the tides rise and fall, eating oysters, clams, hake, and fluke.

Wild grapes border the path to the beach--I will show him where in August.

Look at an old man who's lived on the bay--he may be missing a tooth or two (or he may have every tooth in his 87 year old head), he may not have a diploma (or he may have a wall covered with degrees), but he will have this much--a twinkle in his eyes, and a quick smile.

This summer I may teach my nephew how to clean a skate--the key to a happy life is knowing what you want, and knowing what you like. I'm sure Chilean sea bass (the erstwhile Patagonian toothfish) tastes fine, but any around here had to travel a long way to get here--they only live in the southern hemisphere.

Skate tastes fine, too, especially if fresh.

Don't tell the people in suits, though--I want them to last.

A walk in February

(Leslie and I took a wonderful walk today, February 6--this is more a straight journal entry for us, to remind us next winter that even February grants us a break now and then.)

The sun is coming back--today a southern breeze woke up some of the critters slumbering under the snow and the sand.

You think winter cannot end, then you get a day like today. We took our usual walk from Harpoon Henry's down to the ferry jetty, then back.

For now, a list of live critters we spotted:

*oysters
*mussels
*sand flea/mole crab (a huge one, skittering around on the flat like a drunken sailor)
*usual variety of sand pipers, gulls
*razorbills--first ones for us! (First thought they were seals)
*A jonah-like crab, but small and dark, almost black, green (not a mitten crab)
*Some type of worm attached to the edge of a horseshoe crab shell
*A beach fly feasting on a freshly dead oyster

A couple of dead:

*Small striped bass at the edge of a tidepool, mouth agape and body curled as though still chasing its prey
*A balled up jelly

The usual suspects:

*People lolling in the sun
*Bouncy dogs

The unexpected:

*A fisherman trying his luck on the ferry jetty

The high tide edge of the beach breaks through like a false floor--snow drifts remain under the sand. (It is startling to have the beach give way under you.)

The sunset tonight was spectacular--several pods of people watched. Except for the chill and the southern position of the setting sun, you could think it was June. I found a piece of driftwood perfect for a walking stick.

(Today we started a cold frame--an earthworm welcomed me as I dug out a tiny trench to lay the wood. It's like last week's freeze never happened.)

Ebb tide (fiction)

Children learn the smell of decay from their grandparents. Grandma naps with her mouth open.
"Grandma smells...."

"Shhh...."

And death becomes scary.

---

A tottering gentleman walks near the edge, his shoes no longer sinking as they once did.

The bay pulls back. Low tide. A glimpse of mud flats reminds him of a thigh, of her. A quick flush, embarrassed by unshared thoughts.

On the jetty a few oysters and mussels gape like old folks sleeping. The sicksweet scent of death blends with the exuberant breath of critters who feast on the shore's edge, gorging on life before the tide returns.

The Delaware Bay etches the gray February skies. A single tern hovers a foot over a careless spearing, dives, then seemingly walks on water a moment as it swallows the writhing flash of silver, no longer alive, not yet dead.

The older man lifts a whelk shell, and sniffs. His nose knows before he does, and the still rotting corpse is tossed back to the water.

A grey shadow scuttles towards the whelk flesh.

---

The beach has shifted, he has grayed. He stands on the spot--almost sure. She showed him the sea monsters that grinned back at them when they arced underwater to stare at the August sun.

He trudges home.

The tide returns.

A Kinnellian oyster

Yesterday Leslie and I wandered around Poverty Beach. The sun ducked and dodged occasionally threatening clouds until the mist closed up around us.

The ocean here spits up shells, lots of them. The ghosts of whelks mingle with their victims--oysters, quahogs, scallops, and surf clams.

While meandering around the mass of mollusks, I stumbled upon the largest oyster shell I've ever held.

What is the lifespan of Crassostrea viginica, the local oyster?
What is its maximum size?

Go ahead, look it up.

The experts will tell you it gets to 20 years old, and about 8" long.

I found the shell of one today that just misses 9 inches. Its shell tells a story about 40 years old.

"Awareness of ignorance is as devout
as knowledge of knowledge. Or more so. "
Galway Kinnell via Sean Nash.

We don't know nothing.
If you ever forget this, take a walk along the ocean's edge.

The image is from the NOAA collection, taken in 1895, back when an inch was still an inch.

Last weekend in December

Solstice light.
Midday shadows are as long as they're going to get, at least according to my Farmer's Almanac.

Leslie and I walked to the ferry jetty and back Saturday, our favorite walk, one that is different every time. A southwest breeze warmed us up to the 50's--some folks wandered around in shorts and t-shirts.

The tide was out, and I wandered around keyholing, looking for quahogs. (The quahog's two-siphon system leaves an imprint in the sand that looks like a keyhole.)

Didn't find any keyholes, so dug at a random clam hole and got my hands on a razor clam. After a few minutes of a gentle tug of war (razor clams are fast but fragile), I lifted it out of the sand, its huge foot now grasping at the air.

I put it back in the hole. The exhausted clam did nothing. I debated taking it home for a snack, but there's not a whole lot of recipes calling for a single razor clam.

Not sure it ever recovered--ask the gulls glaring nearby.

***

I found the smallest living crab I've ever noticed. I was about to pocket a cockle shell when I saw a speck move on it.

A tiny, translucent critter with black pixels for eyes was busy waving its claws at us, defending its turf. Took me a moment to figure out what it was doing, but its tough guy stance earned it another shot at life. I put the shell back down.

Not sure it recovered--ask the sand pipers pecking nearby.

***

What else did we see?

A loon kept me company as I scouted the end of a jetty for a future mussel dinner.

A half-dozen purple sand pipers ignored us on the ferry jetty. (No, we don't get any shellfish here--the canal keeps these waters condemned.)

For those of you who walk to the end of the jetty, be aware that the large stone on the outside edge of the foghorn tower is loose. It's tucked in between other rocks, so it's not likely to go far, but feeling the world shift under your feet can be unnerving.

Photo by Leslie--it was much better before I butchered it to fit here.