Greetings from Cape Henlopen

We had another beautiful beach day! It's been slightly on the cool side -- water temperatures in the 60s, which was fine for wading waist-high in the morning at low tide when the temperatures were in the 70s, but quite chilly in the cloudy late afternoon with a cool front blowing through! We managed to find some sand crabs anyway, though we didn't do any proper swimming.

After lunch we went to Cape Henlopen State Park, stopping on the way at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal because we could see that Kalmar Nyckel was docked there and getting ready to sail. The ferry wasn't there -- we saw it later cruising in the ocean when we were in one of the observation towers -- but there's a model of it. We walked to the beach and through the fort at Cape Henlopen:


The Delaware Breakwater East End Lighthouse in Lewes as seen from Cape Henlopen State Park.


This frog lives in the little pond outside the Cape Henlopen State Park nature center.


A pair of horseshoe crabs lives inside in the touch tank, along with hermit crabs and fancy snails.


Apparently it is horseshoe crab mating season, and they really like the Delaware Bay. On the night of the full moon, the park is having an event to count all the mating horseshoe crabs. We saw these two doing their thing in the bay in the middle of the afternoon!


This is Fort Miles, built to defend the Delaware River cities during World War II, now being restored as part of Cape Henlopen State Park.


Here's one of the ferries cruising past one of the Cape Henlopen observation towers -- photo taken from atop another tower).


Kalmar Nyckel boarding students at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry Terminal.


A model of the ferry in front of the terminal from which it departs Lewes.

In the late afternoon we went to the beach off the Rehoboth boardwalk. The tide was high and very few people were swimming in the cold water! We cooked Indian food in the microwave in our hotel room, then went out for ice cream at The Ice Cream Store, famous for flavors like Bacon, Sweet Corn, Hella Good Lavender, and Ghost Pepper (which requires a permission form to try)!
Happy Birthday, Dad!