Cape May Point, New Jersey
Sunset Beach
A bayside beach at the western end of Cape May Point with three things going on at once: a sunset that genuinely is better here than elsewhere on this coast, a wrecked concrete ship offshore, and a flag ceremony that has been running since 1973.
Why the sunset actually works here
Plenty of places claim a good sunset. This one has geography behind it.
The beach faces roughly west-northwest, straight out across the mouth of Delaware Bay, and the bay's long axis runs away to the northwest. The Delaware shore due west is about eighteen and a half miles away — far enough to be below the horizon. Cape Henlopen is a little over twelve miles off, but away to the south-southwest, well out of the picture.
So the sun goes down over open water across the whole year, from its southernmost winter setting point to its northernmost summer one. On an Atlantic-coast beach, where the sun normally sets behind you over land, that is unusual.
One claim to ignore. You will read that this is the only place on the East Coast where you can watch the sun set over water. It is not — every west-facing bay and sound beach on the coast does the same thing. The honest version is better anyway: this is a rare Atlantic beach that faces the wrong way, and the wrong way is the right way at seven in the evening.
The flag ceremony
At sunset in the summer season, the flag over Sunset Beach is lowered while the national anthem and then Kate Smith's recording of "God Bless America" play. Family members of the honored veteran lower it themselves, and "Taps" plays as they do.
Every flag flown here is a veteran's casket flag — the flag that covered that person's coffin, donated afterwards by the family. It flies over the beach for the whole of that day and comes down at the ceremony.
It was started in 1973 by Marvin Hume, a Second World War Navy aviation machinist's mate, in memory of three friends killed at Pearl Harbor. He led it himself until he died in 2015. More than ten thousand servicemembers have been honored this way.
The ceremony runs on summer evenings, on several nights a week at the height of the season and less often at the ends of it. The pattern has changed over the years, so check with the operator before you plan an evening around it rather than trusting a schedule printed anywhere else.
The ship offshore
The concrete lump about a hundred and fifty feet out is the SS Atlantus, a First World War concrete cargo ship that was deliberately sunk here in 1926 to form the foundation of a ferry pier. The ferry got built — thirty-eight years later, a few miles away, and without her.
Looking down instead of out
This is one of the two beaches where people hunt Cape May diamonds — clear quartz pebbles that polish up convincingly. The other is Higbee Beach, up the bayshore.
And for birders
New Jersey Audubon rates Sunset Beach as some of the best sea watching on the East Coast. Loons and sea ducks in winter; shorebirds in spring; storm-petrels in summer; and in autumn, Northern Gannets streaming past on a northeast wind. The wreck itself is a reliable roost.
Cape May Point →
The borough, the lighthouse, the state park and the hawk watch.
The ferry →
Across to the other cape, and what is under the boat on the way.