Every summer, my good friends from college and I take a beach trip to Ocean City, Maryland, a place that most of us in the DC area have gone to (at least in our childhood). It had been a tradition of ours to go to my friend’s grandfather’s beachfront condo, relax on the crowded beach, and go out in the (somewhat grimy) bars around town.

Last year, though, we did not have as great of a time as we normally did. Don’t get me wrong: hanging out at the beach is always fun, but we felt that we needed a change of scenery. Maybe going to the same condo on the same beach for 5+ years had worn on us.

This year, my same friend whose grandfather’s condo we use, decided that he wanted to take a beach trip as his bachelor’s party. He thought that it would be a good idea to celebrate it by upgrading our yearly beach destination to Dewey Beach — just 30 or so miles north of Ocean City. Though it is only 30 miles, that short distance makes a BIG difference.

First of all – the beaches are much less crowded. We stayed in the most central area of Dewey Beach, but were still able to get a decent location next to the water when we went to the beach. We also found the infrastructure and crowd to be better as well. The only disadvantage of going to Dewey Beach was that the bars around town close at 1am — a full hour before those at Ocean City. Though that might not be a problem in most circumstances, it does not jive as well during a bachelor’s party :).

Now, not all things are bad at Ocean City. I’ve had plenty of my share of perfect beach days there: when the water is warm, waves are flowing, the sun is shining but not overbearing, slight breeze sifts through the air. Also, the past couple times I went to Ocean City, I saw a school of dolphins swimming through the tide, only a hundred feet out or so. Some people find it hard to believe that Ocean City has dolphins in its water, but it does! Given my experiences in a beach only a few miles away, I hoped for at least one perfect beach day during my stay in Dewey.

Save the first day, when the water was ice cold, we did get perfect beach days for nearly the entire time of our trip. I even spotted a couple schools of dolphins as well. UNFORTUNATELY, I did not have a camera with me… though I hoped to get a glimpse of them again when I had a camera within reach.

Now remember this WAS a bachelor’s party, so as much as I wanted to, I was not able to wake up early and explore with my camera as I usually like. That said, I did wake up early during our last morning there and was able to catch the sunrise from the balcony of our motel.

Dewey Beach – Sunrise over the Ocean (click for larger version)

It was actually much nicer than I had anticipated. Humidity had its grasp (even around 6am) and draped a mist over the water. That mist created a slight glow to the sun that made it look that much more divine. Our motel also had a tall, colonial flag right in front of the water. Though it would have been nice had a small breeze pass by to unfold the flag, it still created a comforting scene. I clicked the scene a few times over, not seeing the man who had intersected the reflection of the sun. Had I gotten the shot a couple seconds sooner and squarely in the middle of the reflection, it would have been great. I guess sometimes you are just a little.too.late.

Overall, our visit to Dewey Beach was a blast. It was a definite upgrade from Ocean City and was a nice vacation from reality. Next time maybe we can go somewhere with bluer water? Why stop upgrading now??!!