What a day. Let’s kick off with the Relive version of my ride down Cape May yesterday:

https://www.relive.cc/view/vrqDYr4MGwv

• Today’s Distance (miles): 58 (minus 15-2 for the ferry!)
• Time in saddle: 4h 47
• Max/min temp – in full sun (°c): 45°/23° – hottest so far, I think
• Climbing (feet) : 353
• Calories used: 2,576
• Today’s 2nd Breakfast: Pancakes fully loaded at the Pink Flamingo Diner, North Wildwood NJ
• Cafe time: 3h 39

There was news this morning (even on the BBC) of extreme flooding back in Nova Scotia. The town of Halifax has had a ‘once in a decade’ amount of rain, a months-worth in a couple of hours. I’m thinking of people camping at West Sydney Campground, and hoping they all cancelled their plans. It puts my wet start to this trip into perspective a bit, doesn’t it?

I asked Susie if she could find a YouTube version of the descending elevator at One World Trade Centre, and bam! Here it is. It’s ingenious how it uses the feeling of falling to create the incredibly realistic illusion of also flying out around the tower. It’s almost worth the entrance fee on its own.

I’m using a new way of keeping notes for the blog as I ride. Instead of screeching to a halt and scribbling on a scrap of paper, I’m now saying ‘Hey, Siri!’, and sending myself a WhatsApp message. It’s saving a lot of stopping, but does create some funny voice recognition errors. Yesterday I wanted to say ‘If you want to lower your perceived temperature as you ride on a hot day, play some Bach’. Siri/WhatsApp suggested instead that you should ‘Play some golf’.

As a flavour of how this Siri system works, here are a few random thoughts sent to myself yesterday. Some of these might have ended up in the blog, but lots don’t make it! (and they’re edited to make sense in the English language):

1. Fred Astaire’s beautiful studio version of ‘Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off’ has a great piano solo in the midsection, with a kind of rocking, clashing interval. ‘You say flattened 9th, I say compound minor 2nd’

2. The great thing about Route 9 heading south is that the wooded sections give you lovely shade in the afternoon. Big bonus!

3. Jazz ‘scat’ singing is my least favourite form of jazz. Even Ella. (Especially Cleo Laine)

4. Talked to an Uber driver by the beach in Ocean City. He said he was free until 8pm, then he’d be driving drunk people for the whole night, finishing sometime after 5am. For the whole summer.

TODAY’S ACTUAL CYCLING: Yaay it’s a ferry day! In spite of that, I was truly sad to leave Tamerlane this morning. It was crying out for a longer stay, away from the busy coast but still close to the sea. I talked for some time (after breakfast and packing up) with the owner and an older guy who’s stayed there for decades, now enjoying the freedom of a super-portable oxygen delivery box that he showed me. The owner told me something that I’ve now heard a few times: there’s a reason that all of the campgrounds are turning away bikes like me, or charging us crazy prices for no elec/water/space. Since the pandemic the camps are being systematically bought up by big corporations who are aiming to squeeze the maximum amount of money out of their ‘investment’. The result is there for all to see. A family campground like Tamerlane is like an oasis, and you love it all the more. Screw those stinking corporations for trying to ruin something as age-old, important and as pleasant as a decent camp ground for the night. Let’s all just stay at Tamerlane.

I have barely mentioned so far how incredibly beautiful the wetlands areas are down here on Cape May. As soon as you turn off the coast road the open expanses of water, bright green grasses and reed beds appear, with long road bridges spanning the larger ‘islands’. Seabirds and waders are everywhere and this morning it was very peaceful.

I made for Avalon, then Wildwood, with a stop at Stone Harbor (guess how I remembered the name?) to look at a local Sunday market. There was a guitarist – you can see him in the foreground of the 2nd pic – who’s playing was completely drowned out by the sound of the refrigeration generators of the food trucks right beside me.

I rode for about 10 miles inland and down to the ferry port. On the way I stopped by huge sea captain, to get a photo. I wanted to get a record because I was pleased to find that he had exactly the same bike helmet as me.

A guy offered to take my picture for me. As he handed me my iPad back, he said ‘There’s selfie on there too, just so’s you’ll remember me!’ Okay pal, you’re remembered now!

The second I restarted, I realised that my front tyre was flat. I’d ridden across white shells to get to the statue (you can see them in the photo), so immediately thought I had a punc&%*@ from them. It seemed unlikely though, as the tyres are crazily well-protected for that kind of thing. On closer inspection, the tyres weren’t damaged at all – the valve had just popped, and wouldn’t retighten. So rather than try to screw it back in I decided that since I had time and a patch of shade (it’s really hot today) I would replace the whole tube right now, right there.

This morning I had said to the campground owner that I didn’t want to rush for a specific ferry, just in case I had a p-word. And I actually said the word!! As soon as I said it, I regretted it and thought, That’s blown it. And it turned out that it had. Never mention the p-word.

All went super-smoothly at the ferry terminal. I got chatting to a customs official who had to look in all of my panniers after I’d bought my ticket, who wanted to know all about my journey. I gave him my card and we shook hands, and he told the crew to let me on right away, just as the last foot passengers from Delaware walked off. I have never had a boat to myself for so long. 20 minutes later, the first people started boarding. When does something like that EVER happen at an airport? I LOVE ferries.

The boat pulled out into the harbour and we were off, next stop Lewes, Delaware, crossing over the enormous Delaware Bay in the process. A journey of about 1h 45, same as Dover-Calais.

STATE SONG TIME!: I’m going to break my own rules here. The whole of America is in mourning, as far as I can tell, for the death last night of the incredibly charming Tony Bennett. He never, to my knowledge, sang about Delaware, but I won’t let that stop me from posting this MTV ‘Unplugged’ performance of Fly Me To The Moon’. He was 96, and was singing live until really recently. What a legend.

As has happened several times on this trip, I spent a crazy amount of time whilst on the ship logging on to the awful ReserveAmerica website – which you MUST use to book many campgrounds – rather than enjoy every minute of the crossing. It’s an almost unusable website, hugely glitchy and constantly changing from ‘available’ to ‘unavailable’ within the same booking attempt. And SO fiddly, like many US reservation websites, I’ve found, compared to the European equivalent. Cut them down and make them clearer, is my only suggestion.

The boat arrived in Delaware and I set off for my campground tonight, the Delaware Seashore State Park campground. I’m just beginning to the feel of this trip being so coastal. I know that probably sounds strange since I’ve been on the road for 23 days, but the last few days have felt like I really am following the seaboard now, which is great.

I stopped in Lewes to restock the camp kitchen, resisting some very heavy-looking watermelons, but already knew that tonight I was going to be eating out. The last stage of the ride was over this big fella:

Right at the top I got a view of my campground for tonight, and I thought ‘mmm, a bit, er, car-parky’

After the lovely place last night this campground felt like a bit of a slap in the face, but I know I have to take the rough with the smooth. As if it couldn’t get any more surreal, after showering I cycled under the massive bridge to a sandy car park, locked up my bike and found a table up on the roof terrace of the Big Chill Beach Club, where I ordered a watermelon and grilled chicken salad (after missing out on melons earlier!) with a pint of Yuenling ipa. A live band was playing Fleetwood Mac (the lead singer, in a twist that’s new to me, plays the bongos at the same time) and the girl serving me was on her first night, so was actually really friendly. I’m sure it will wear off. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be my last beer tonight. The sun streamed in and I started to feel like this was the start of a new part of my trip.

We’ve got to that time when I sign off again, so let’s do this all again in the morning, okay? I will if you will. X

WHAT IS IT SAM?: 5 for you today, Sam, or any Samalikes. These gulls were all around me whenever I left the coast and entered the wetland area.

ADIRONDACKS IN NEED OF CUSTOMERS:

SIGNS & THINGS THAT ARE FUNNY:

There’s a quiz today – first person to name the film that I was going to reference when I saw this strange sight on Route 9 this morning, wins a bag Minstrels (they’re back!!) I may have to amend that to a more US-like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups: