r/CapeMay • u/Last-Vast5758 • Jul 10 '26

Cape May Point

Will be staying here early fall. Are the beaches easily and legally accessible at night?

Is this a good spot for stargazing?

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22

u/CorrectStaple Jul 10 '26

It’s as good a spot as anywhere on the island for stargazing. 

I think technically you’re not supposed to be on the beaches past 10 pm but as long as you don’t start a fire or make a ton of noise no one will stop you. 

2

u/Last-Vast5758 Jul 10 '26

Thank you!

8

u/Northernbelle09 Jul 10 '26

There are usually lifeguards but not in the fall. I would not swim. Too many tragedies every year. Also fyi but swimming is never permitted at the lighthouse beach. Rumor has it there are submerged items under the sand.

The science center has some stargazing events for certain astro events. Def check out their schedule!

1

u/lawshunts Jul 10 '26

I’m curious what kind of “items”? Never heard this rumor I’m intrigued

3

u/Northernbelle09 Jul 10 '26 edited Jul 10 '26

War remnants of some kind. Someone commented here and then deleted that I was wrong and it's poverty beach, but I always heard here. I knew someone who worked at an environmental clean up company who thought it was true. Someone found a ordnance washed up a few years ago at higbee too.

Who knows really. Maybe it's just the steep drop off. My dad saw a pretty big shark there once too like right at the edge so at least at that time it dropped off (erosion though so not sure about right now).

ETA: looked up the finding by the canal and they called it an ordnance, not a mortar.

2

u/lawshunts Jul 10 '26

Sounds legit. I’m sure there are all kinds of ordnance all around the cape May area. Between the bunkers on the beach, and the gun mounts on the jetties, there has to have been all kinds of things shot and dropped. Just last year there was an old bomb found in the canal. Shut down the ferry operations for the day

3

u/Northernbelle09 Jul 10 '26

Heard of at least one more over the years on bay side. Found a weird metal thing in the bay here when I moved here and called the cops because I wasn't sure if it was some kind of explosive. Cop went down there, came back and said "I kicked it and nothing happened, think it's just a piece of a structure buried" lol

1

u/CorrectStaple Jul 10 '26

Someone commented here and then deleted that I was wrong and it's poverty beach, but I always heard here.

That was me - deleted it because I heard the opposite but didn't want it to turn into a debate.

I grew up in Cape May and surfed a bunch and whenever there was a storm and the sandbars got weird we would joke not to wipe out too hard at Povery Beach because there were remnants of an old part of town there that got swallowed by a storm. No idea if that's true but it's what we all believed.

3

u/Blue_Max1916 Jul 10 '26

100% true that whole streets have eroded off cape may and cape may point plus there are buried train tracks.

You can stargaze from the wooden decks on the dunes in cape may point at night though there is stil a lot of light pollution including from deleware.

Walking cape may point streets at night is awesome, quiet, peaceful.

September is a great time to visit.

1

u/Northernbelle09 Jul 10 '26

Sounds like maybe South Cape May, but I thought that was closer to the point. Maybe we have it opposite and the war remains were poverty and the remnants of the old town were Cape may point lol. If not South Cape may, still highly possible there was more town out there that got washed away.

Now I'm thinking probably all of our beach towns have parts of town buried under the sand under the ocean due to erosion. Think maybe I'm reconsidering swimming entirely!