Jersey Shore

Please ignore the fact that it's 3 days later and
Matt and Conrad are wearing the same shirts as in Annapolis.

At a sushi restaurant in Annapolis, the Japanese waitress asked us whether we were from Jersey because of our deep tans. Reality show stereotypes reach far. We're in South Jersey now. While there are some very tan looking types walking around (no Snooki yet), mostly Cape May seems like a lot of other northern coastal towns. The shoreline buildings are heavily Victorian, but the residential areas remind us of any suburb around Chicago, with its deciduous trees and hydrangea.

Unlike Chicago, the seafood is cheap and plentiful--a 1-pound lobster costs less than $8 at the local restaurant. Tuna is fresh off the boat and you don't need a second mortgage to buy a big slab. At the other extreme, we were unhappily surprised to find that almost all the beaches in New Jersey charge admission (not parking fees but actual admission).

We also finally got a new SIM card for the IPhone recently so we could access weather and email if no free Wi-Fi is available.  The bad news is that the phone number we got was previously owned by a deadbeat named Mirabelle and every bill collector east of the Mississippi is calling us looking for her.  Oh, and apparently Mirabelle likes to ski because she's on Wilmot Mountain's robo-call list.  Only 5 more days to get your season pass at a reduced rate...

I wasn't going to dive, but now that you say I can't...

The winds are looking poor for the next few days so we may get to hear a few more renditions of the Coast Guard recruits do their early morning calisthenics at the base just behind the boat. If we don't get a couple of days of good solid winds to make the jump to Cape Cod, we might change our strategy and head up the coast slowly in small segments via New York and Long Island sound.