July 15, 2023, Saturday—
This black hulk is the wreckage of the USS Atlantus, resting like 3,000 tons of bricks just two tennis courts away from the shore of Sunset Beach. The ship was built from concrete instead of steel after World War I, and ultimately ended up a warf, wrecked by a storm.
Then, no one could move it.
Not only that, the wreck is supposed to be covered in golf ball-sized “Cape May Diamonds,” clear quartz baubles, polished by the waves to gleaming. The beach really was dotted with translucent quartz the size of teeth. One fit in place of my missing molar. Classy!
We had had a busy family afternoon, but my nephew, his wife and three small kids still met us at the best beach (it faces west on the Cape May Peninsula) to catch the sunset. It wasn’t Friday night’s pink, Day-Glo gloaming, but it was was cool out, and beautiful.
The littlest boy, 2 1/2, dove into the sand on his “belly,” AKA face, and had to swish sand out of his teeth with a bottle of water back at the Subaru. The older kids cut cartwheels until my niece, a curtain of hair over her face like a Japanese monster, approached her mom to burble out her own mouth sand.
Which was so unexpected, Rachel and I burst into secret, empathetic laughter. But mostly, we all enjoyed just piling up the clear white stones—not in our mouths, surprisingly.
Sunset Beach, Wikipedia
Can you dive to the USS Atlantus? Scuba (Yes, but be careful.)
More about the weirdness of the USS Atlantus, Weird NJ
More about Cape May Diamonds from rock hunters on Reddit
Burbly closeup of the wreckage of the USS Atlantus and the completely okay Cape May-Lewes Ferry.