Cape May, N.J.

     Cape May is the summer playground for New Jersey and points north with nice beaches, an historic lighthouse and lots of cottages for rent.  It is also home to the only U.S. Coast Guard Recruit Training Center which, sadly, is no longer open to the public because of 9/11.

View of the Coast Guard base from our boat.

     At the very southern tip of New Jersey, Cape May is surrounded on three sides by water, and that about completes my list of attractions.  Unfortunately, bad weather kept us in port and with water as the main attraction there, we didn't have much to do.  We walked a lot and did enjoy some of the town's charm.

     This is the downtown shopping area with the street turned into a pedestrian walkway. 

This church marks the beginning of the downtown mall.

     They had a cute little fire department museum, but it wasn't very big and only took about 15 minutes to see everything they had in it.

     We did enjoy looking at the houses and gardens as we walked through town.  Here's a few favorites:

     These next houses are houseboats (surprising, huh?) and they were parked directly across for where we were docked:

     And the best part about our stay in Cape May was the afternoon happy hour in the marina with our fellow boaters:

     At this point in our journey, we had to leave the protected waters and head out into the Atlantic Ocean (which is why we had to stay in Cape May--the wind and waves were up and small craft advisories were issued for a few days).  Once everything settled down, we headed out on our way to Atlantic City.