Well we've had quite a streak of warm ocean temperatures this summer, quite unlike last summer, but on Thursday, that thing that happens when the wind shifts and starts coming in from the mainland, and the top layer of water gets blown out to sea, and all of a sudden. Brrrr. Your ocean is as cold as your beer:

Well, not quite. But during some investigatory happy hour beach reporting, a little Bud Light in honor of our President's choice of brew tonight in his Sgt. Crowley-Skip Gates summit, I discovered that the ocean had dropped about 10 to 15 degrees since Wednesday. It's called upwelling, I tell you. And every summer we write about it like it's never happened before. The lifeguards said the water temp was down in the low 60s, after being nicely in the mid 70s for the last few weeks. Meanwhile, the southern half of Ventnor was still reeking of mussels.

I'm thinking perhaps I should invite some Ventnor police officers to a Bud Light summit of my own, see if we can work out our differences. They seem way too interested in my traffic habbits this summer. I mean, I make that U turn in front of CVS all year long, no problem. Only in July does this cost me $85. So much for cutting the locals a break. In any case, I found it interesting that President Obama went for Bud Light, as my usually way ahead of the curve nephew just this week accepted one of my Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre brews but then chose to polish off our stash of Bud Light, kept in stock for an always-dropping-in neighbor who drinks nothing else, and sang its praises. So maybe they're onto something. Anyway, hopefully the ocean will reverse course and warm up again for this weekend. Though it seems some thunderstorms may make things a little lively. No worries. Despite the worms, mussels and seaweed, it's been incredibly lovely this season.

Previously: From Worms to a Whale.  

This has been an interesting marine science lesson in Jersey this week, hasn't it?

From these guys: 

... to this unfortunate young mammal, shown here in a photo submitted to WPVI by Michael Wray of Ocean Grove.

This is a 12 foot short finned pilot whale that washed up around 3 p.m. yesterday on the 35th Street Beach in Ocean City. Officials said it was severely underweight. It died shortly after it came ashore. Michael Miller of the Press of Atlantic City wrote: "The cetacean looked skinny for a whale, with a bulbous head and glossy black skin that reflected the sunlight."Some people on the beach pleaded with lifeguards to help push the whale back into the ocean, according to Miller's story. The whale's body was taken to the University of Pennsylvania for a necropsy. Miller's story noted that some parents told their children the whale was sleeping, others photographed the kids in front of the carcas, and one 9-year-old gave the whale a name: Ruby. R.I.P. Ruby.

So now that the excitement over the worms in the ocean has settled a bit, a blog post five times more popular than even the one about Paris Hilton, draw your own conclusions, and Ventnor beach goers have been left with only the stench of rotting mussels to bum them out, we can turn out attention to this pressing issue. Which coffee shop is the proper heir to the fabled and beloved old 4th Street Cafe at 4th and Atlantic in Ocean City? I bit the bullet and had coffee and scones at both places this morning (hey, I have a story in today's paper, I'm entitled). As you can see by the photo above, the people at the Who's on First Cafe at 1st and Asbury, consider themselves the real 4th Street Cafe, and believe me, they have the coffee (La Colombe) the scones (how do they get that crust so crusty, that inside so fluffy???), and the management (from the old 4th Street) to make that claim. But yet....

 

But yet. It was only at 4th and Atlantic, where Positively Fourth Street thrives under the same owners of the building, but not the people who actually ran the old cafe, and the same gang hangs at the old roundtable in the back room, doing crossword puzzles and yacking, the breeze from the ocean finding its way to the front patio at that corner, which once upon a time was actually nearly ocean front, hence the old Lifeguard Station that is cattycorner to the cafe, that I felt that old 4th Street raison d'etre, or perhaps it's the comforting lack of raison d'etre, feeling kick in. The coffee, Harry & Beans Fair Trade Organic Nicauraguan, was good, tho not La Colombe. And the Mexican chocolate scone I had was a doughy parody of the ones the original 4th street cafe people mastered that now are baked at 1st street. But yet. Something about the space at 1st and Asbury that feels claustrophobic. Even the patio, which is nice, doesn't feel right. There's a bit of a slope, I think, and the chairs are too high, and I kind of couldn't wait to get out of there. And some guy stood on the corner and yacked on his cell phone, not realizing that even though he had stepped out of the cafe itself, to be polite, he was still bothering everyone on the patio. But at 4th Street, I settled in for a nice chunk of Anna Karenina (I'm on page 574, and I'm beginning to suspect that this isn't going to turn out so well for Anna). The chairs felt right. The tables inside have some really nice glass tile work. The coffee refills were free, not 50 cents, as at 1st and Asbury. It's still a tough call. I'd take either one in Ventnor and give thanks. The food is excellent at both places, both serve a similar lunch menu, with a similar dinner option. The baking is still better at 1st and Asbury. But the space, the je ne sais quoi, the reason we seek out these places to begin with, somehow, it didn't make the leap to 1st street. Maybe it's just the proximity to the ocean. A few blocks toward the bay is just stuffier air. Whatever it is, I'm going to give this year's nod to location.Still champ: 4th and Atlantic, a charmed spot at the Jersey shore. 

 

Wow, I thought I'd seen everything at the beach in Jersey. But today, wow, worms!  At the shore! And I'm not talking about those slimy politicians in Deal. I'm talking actual worms, red, juicy worms, washing up in your ocean onto your beach. Comme ca:

 That's a closeup of one such sucker in the sand in Ventnor. The beach patrol guys said not to worry, they are clam worms, and they are your basic bottom of the ocean food chain, bait for schools of blue fish and the like, washed up to shore by all the churning of the seas, the same churning that brought all that slimy seaweed and smelly mussels that were bumming every one out. The lifeguards said they are not harmful, except that we should maybe watch out for the schools of fish that are coming after them, make sure we don't get zapped by some fins or bit by some hungry fish. Ok.

Here are kids playing in the piles of mussels! Isn't Jersey fun?

 Anyway, mussels a la Ventnor is an old story. The mussels wash up, they dry off, they start to stink. We get it. But the worms, that was freaking everyone out. At least the water was warm though. Definitely in the low to mid 70s. But slimey. Here's another picture of the worm tracks left on the beach.

And, because this is just so gross, here's another picture of the worms swimming around in the ocean as it washed into shore. Again, no health hazard, says the beach patrol. Just another reminder, that this is an ocean, people. But still. Worms!

 And, just for fun, here's a picture of a human kind of slug I found slogging around the Margate beach, under the fishing pier. And drying his laundry to boot. Nice, dude.

 

 Update on Sunday: Water was much much clearer today, and still nice and warm. The stray skate had washed up on shore, drawing some gawkers, but mostly, it was busines as usual.

Video: Down the Shore, Ventnor City

Video: Down the Shore, Strathmere

Video: Down the Shore, Stone Harbor

I got a phone call the other afternoon that made me kind of glad I live at the shore. It was from a friend who said, hey wanna learn to surf this afternoon? I was like, this is cool. A little change of pace from the usual late afternoon, hey wanna go to Starbucks? Let's do it. I had written about Stacey Marchel, the surfing mom who gives lessons, and so now I was ready to give it a whirl. Never mind I can't even boogie board. I have been rowing for the past two summers at the Viking Rowing Club in Ventnor, and that has been great. Great exercise, great discipline, total focus, lots of quirky cool people, no cell phones on board. I figured, if I can row, I can surf, yes?

Then I discovered the pop up. Like surfing the web, you can't get anywhere until you get through the pop ups. Pop up, it turns out, is the whole key to surfing. It's the part where you go from lying on the board, feeling groovy, to ending up on your feet, feeling really groovy. It's not supposed to involve your knees at all, much to my surprise. It's supposed to be one fluid springy motion. So it's like, lying on your stomach on the board, lift up your head and torso, push down, spring up to your feet, and -- presto -- or, in my case, no presto, crash into shore.

The thing I like about rowing is that all of my strengths seemed to be needed. My legs are stronger than my arms, check. I can focus, check. I can work with a team, check. I can master precise instructions for finicky stroke technique, check. I can power ten when commanded, check! I can hide my smirks under a Phillies hat and behind sun glasses, check. Except for that one time I left the hat home and pissed off the instructor with my raised eyebrows.

But the surfing pop up. Wow. Upper body strength. Nope. Agility and spring. Nope. Limberness, Nope. Courage in the face of rough surf and high tide, Nope. Another mom who was clearly pop-up worthy and getting the hang of it (it was her third time out) said to me after I complimented her, "Well, I'm just very athletic." That kind of irked me. I'm very athletic too. Wanna take this over to the Jerome Avenue basketball courts and work it out over there? I'm just not pop-up athletic.

Basically, I need to go home and do like many many dry land pop ups, as demonstrated by this fine limber young surfer dudette in the video below. And then maybe I shall attempt again. Or maybe it's just getting over the pop up hump. And once you make yourself do it, get on your feet, you get that surf buzz everyone talks about and then you're hooked. But at least the water was loverly warm, at least low 70s, and I stayed out in the big surf longer than I have in years.

The one guy I'm sure who totally could surf, though, is Raul Ibanez. If you saw his falling catch the other night against the Cubs, and the scramble to his feet, then you saw perfect pop up form. Here's the video of that. Really, compare it to below.

Previously: Oh those wacky Stone Harbor shoobies

How to Practice "Pop Ups" for Surfing Exercise -- powered by eHow.com

So I'm minding my own business inside the Hoy's in Stone Harbor, looking for story ideas and scoring, finally, an updated version of Scategories, and this group of people brush past me breathlessly, stick a camera into my hands, whip out funny sunglasses and ask me to take their picture. Wookay. Multi-generational enthusiasm on the streets of a Jersey shore beach town? This means only one thing: shoobies! 

So I take the picture, exchange rolled eyes with the store clerk, get some vague explanation that they're engaged in a game, and they disappear. I move on, looking for story ideas and scoring, nostalgically, an old barrel of monkees game. Cool.

But people like this do not just appear in your life once and go away. No, they come back again and again. Such enthusiasm! It turns out these are the  wacky Greco, Roessler and Peak families of Doylestown. 

But that guy in the middle is Michael Herbert of Staten Island, N.Y. He was spotted for the distinction of being "an adult wearing crocs" which was one of 57 different things on their scavenger hunt list they had two hours to complete on unsuspecting people and things along Stone Harbor's 96th Street strip. He took it well, like, whatever, sure take my picture, agreeably putting aside any thoughts that there was a vaguely mocking context to fitting any of the list's criteria. Here' a photo of the family with another unsuspecting target: man walking a dog. People are very cooperative in Stone Harbor.

Shannon Peak, who is holding the list up there, said the families do it every year during their shore vacation, and then in a few weeks, get together back up in Doylestown for a barbecue and compare results, pick a winner. The winner gets some kind of Mr. Potato Head dressed like Darth Vader, which she called like Darth Vaderhead, or Mr. Potato Vader, I forget. Cathy Greco, in tie die, above, is the mastermind behind the list, which commands the teams to find and take their pictures with a bald guy pulling their finger, someone in East Coast College Gear, something about fudge and, of course, the adult wearing crocs, among other things. Seems to take a big chunk out of a nice beach day to me, and today, in the rain, maybe they were questioning their timing, but they seemed to be having fun. Actually, they seemed to be having a crazy fun good time. Here's another of the families streaking (not that kind of streaking, streaking, like moving fast) down 96th Street. I only caught them from behind, but I recognized the list.

Well, whatever. Here's to you, Grecco, Roessler and Peak families of Doylestown. You go ahead and make the Jersey shore your wacky playground. We are happy to be your props. Personally, I liked this other game I saw being played yesterday in Stone Harbor: The I dropped my ice scream scoop of my cone and now am wondering if the 5 second rule applies to a scoop of ice scream on the sidewalk at the shore. I would've said, definitely. But the group of girls I saw couldn't quite get their fingers around the ice scream in time to satisfy their concerns. And so, sadly, they had to leave the scoop behind:

 

 Previously: I miss the nuns

One of the cool things about moving down the shore more than a decade ago was our awesome neighbors, the Dominican nuns from Blauvelt, N.Y. They were, and are, great neighbors and amazing people.  One of our best memories, and maybe even theirs, is leaving our infant daughter with the nuns on their porch one afternoon and going to play tennis for an hour or so. They passed her around the porch, rocking chair to rocking chair, and had a great time. Or so they said. They often bring down children of migrant workers for a beach weekend, and for many years, the big gray house was packed every weekend with vacationing sisters. We got to know a few of them pretty well, they oohed over my daughters' growing up over the years and never failed to remember my husband's Labor Day-ish birthday, sending over a bottle of wine from "the sisters." Sweet. Oh well, times change. And economic realities of both shore towns and the Catholic church have forced the nuns to rent out their home almost every weekend this summer, except for the few that the sisters still come down. Better than selling, as the nuns next door to them did a few years back, extracting a promise that the buyers would never tear down the gorgeous green and white trimmed house with the landmark cupola, a promise that was immediately violated. But it's been an adjustment. After all, who rents out a house that has maybe 37 bedrooms and an enormous industrial kitchen? Lots of people at one time, that's who. I'm estimating maybe six different family units from New York are down this week all together, with what sounds like 700 children and teenagers who like to stay up all through the night. C'est la vie, definitely comes with the territory of living down the shore, but man, I got a headache. Last night, Ventnor police had to drive down the block to finally quiet down the rambunctious group. (I was not the one to call, though the thought crossed my mind). It's a far cry from the sisters, especially for that one weekend in October when they come down for a silent retreat (silent except for when we pass in the street and have sotto voce catching up exchanges.) I guess this is the noisy retreat. I'll try to deal.

Previously: The Mind of Margate

(500) Days of Summer, the new out-of-sequence chronicle of a failed romance co-written by Margate's Scott Neustadter, opened today in cities across the country (tho not Philly, that's next week; it was screened at the Philly Film Fest in March).  Neustadter, a 1994 graduate of Atlantic High, told the Atlantic City Press's Vincent Jackson in March that he wrote most of the film while sitting on the beach on Rumson Avenue, after returning from London and a sputtered 6-month romance, one of two sputtered 6-month romances that inspired the film. Neustadter is, of course, part of the extended and storied Neustadters of Margate, whose influence is felt in many places up and down the Jersey shore. And, now, of course, in Hollywood. Go Neustadters. The film is set mostly in Los Angeles, but at the beginning, as it shows a man and woman growing up on either side of the screen, the narrator says, "This kid from Margate." Which of course will get a pretty good cheer in theaters down the shore, if it ever comes to theaters down the shore. The film got pretty boffo reviews all in all, with New York Times critic A.O. Scott willing to overlook a little thinness and saying it was "as mopily, winningly seductive as the Regina Spektor songs on the soundtrack." That's pretty good comparing in my book. The film will be back in Philly on July 24, and hopefully in shore theaters as well, or soon thereafter. Here's a soundtrack preview to tide you over.

Ah Vince, how we love you down the shore. And how you love the shore back! And we will miss you too, after you get sentenced, now scheduled for Tuesday. We loved trying to find your condo on the bay in Ventnor, and finding a parking space out front that said "Reserved for Senator." Who will park there now? How we loved all those conspiracy theories over the years that it was you, and your power, and your money that was behind the effort to stop the sand dunes from being built in Ventnor, and how awesome it was when testimony in your trial left little doubt that those conspiracy theories were true!!! Who will fight to get rid of those pesky sand dunes now? Actually, another awesome if less bullying power broker, the bobble-headed-into-immortality Pinky Kravitz is on that case, in Atlantic City. Then, just days before your sentencing, you propose to your girlfriend, Carolyn Zinni. Where? Down the Shore, of course. Of course, there is that awkward matter of you walking into Johnny's Cafe in Margate while the Inquirer's Craig Laban was there reviewing the place. Of all the gin joints, Vince... How awesome for Laban, who got to write that he saw you "strolling in for a meal of blackened scallops, crab cakes, and old-fashioned ricotta pie." Of course, then the prosecutors got to quote from that review, and cited it as evidence that your heart and other health problems should not be considered a mitigating factor in your sentencing. Bummer. "Judging by this menu, and as Fumo's medical records confirm, his heart disease is well in check," federal prosecutors John Pease and Robert Zauzmer wrote. Oh well. Probably should have skipped the ricotta pie. In any case, your photo has not yet been posted on the "Star Sightings" page of the Johnny's Cafe website, above, but we'll be monitoring it for an update. Hope to see you down here again soon.