Day 11: Stormy Skies and a Seal of Approval

Look carefully at the reflection in Betsy's photo of a rain puddle in the street below our porch (where the construction crew's truck is usually parked).

It was a very windy day with an almost certain chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon (a forecast that proved correct). Those conditions inspired us to get our exercise in relatively early in the day and to stick fairly close to home.

I rode my bike the two miles or so down to Cape Henlopen State Park where I parked and then jogged the nice asphalt trails through the park, including a sprint up Delaware’s steepest elevation gain. Actually I’m making that up (especially the part about the sprint), but the 80-foot rise from the beach to the overlook at the top of the Great Dune is quite substantial by Delaware standards. I also ran up the spiral steps to the top of the old lookout tower. There was a lot of wind at these high spots, of course, but there were also some awesome views even though it was cloudy and hazy.

The dune is, for the most part man-made. In the early 1800s the cape was flat and heavily wooded. However, in the mid-1800s most of the trees were cut down and that allowed the ever-present winds to create a huge sand dune. In the 1930s the Army built a concrete bunker at the top of the dune which has helped to stabilize and caused it to grow even higher.

After the jog I walked north on the beach for quite a ways, occasionally allowing the icy waves to reach my ankles. Eventually I came upon two ladies who were staring at and photographing a seal that had pulled out on the beach.

He looked at us and we looked at him. He did not seem overly concerned with our presence and it did not look to me like he could move too fast (although I was not of a mind to test that theory).

The ladies and I speculated about whether he was sick or injured or simply tired of swimming around in the windy ocean and taking a breather. I suggested that, perhaps, he was being chased by a shark, a circumstance the ladies admitted they had not considered.

Unfortunately I did not have a camera with me.

About this time the wind picked up (even more) and so I turned around and walked back down the beach, getting sandblasted the entire way.

When I talked to a ranger later at the park Nature Center on my way home he confirmed that the seal – which was probably a young Gray Seal (Harbor Seal would be the other possibility) – had likely simply grown tired and decided to haul out on the beach to rest. I forgot to mention my theory about the shark.

The Nature Center is a funky, laid-back place with some interesting exhibits; including an “Osprey Cam” that is providing real time video of an Osprey nest at the top of an 85-foot tower about a mile away.

Mr. and Mrs. Osprey have been tagged with a tracking device and the volunteer at the NC told me the two had arrived in Delaware about a month ago from their winter home in Brazil. Yes, that is correct. Brazil, the country in South America. He said they crossed the Caribbean by flying from Cuba to Venezuela.

He said Mr. Osprey averaged about 120 miles per day and arrived about a week before Mrs. Osprey.

During the week that Mr. Osprey was here alone he busied himself by gathering material for the nest, which he dumped in a pile at the top of the tower. When Mrs. Osprey arrived she then arranged the pile of material into a nest.

I’ll let readers draw their own conclusions.

The volunteer went on to say that, a few days ago, Mrs. Osprey had laid a single egg. Noting the short time period between their arrival in Delaware and the arrival of the egg, the NC volunteer commented with a sly chuckle; “They didn’t waste much time did they?”

LOL. Dude, what you do with the Osprey Cam video tapes in the privacy of your own home is your own business.

One last bit of Osprey news (I know, this is starting to sound like a reality show). Last year Mrs. Osprey laid three eggs and one of the hatchlings survived. He is spending the summer (winter?) in Brazil because the Osprey fledglings do not return north until they are two years old.

Another interesting factoid I picked up at the NC is that Delaware has never been struck by hurricane, at least not in the 400 years the white man has been here recording the weather. That does not mean it cannot happen. And Delaware has been hammered by several nasty nor’easters over the years that have caused considerable damage, including virtually destroying the boardwalk in Rehoboth in 1962.  

Betsy also rode her bike out to the park and we passed each other on the road.

After a little reading and a late lunch the rain began and the workers left and soon we did too.

We did a little more bike route scouting and exploring along the butt-ugly Ocean Highway between Rehoboth and Lewes and then drove the roughly 16 miles over to the 16-Mile Brewery in Georgetown.

16-Mile is a small, one-building operation and they had a hand-written sign posted on the door “Closed Today, Sorry For The Inconvenience.”

No problem. After a brief stop at the Essex County Court House (we are now one-third of the way to reaching our goal of visiting every court house in Delaware) we took the short drive from Georgetown to Milton, home of the Dogfish Head Brewery.

Dogfish is a substantially larger operation than 16-Mile and we sampled their selection of funky beers and browsed their gift shop where Betsy snagged a bicycle jersey she had eyed the day before at the brewpub in Rehoboth.  

There was a good downpour of rain while we were sampling and browsing and another after we arrived back at the condo.

Betsy fixed up a tasty batch of spaghetti for supper and we ate and read on the deck as we watched the rain.

We retired early to rest up for tomorrow, when sunny, clear, cool skies are predicted.

Note: All of the photos below were taken from the porch by Betsy on 4-28, except for the two sunrise photos which I took from the porch on 4-29.