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While Ocean City was feverishly building roller coasters and haunted houses to amuse the citified summer folk, Fenwick Island kept to itself as a proud, low-key residential neighborhood, home to small-boat captains who supplied the "uptown" restaurants with their seafood and ferried weekend fishing parties out for their snapshot catches. And where those same weekenders, growing to appreciate the Bay more than the beach, often bought weekend trailers and, finally, retirement homes. Even today, Fenwick Island's simple 1940s houses and frankly old-fashioned marina and hardware shops are only slightly obscured by the smattering of shopping strips and convenience stores along the Coastal Highway (although the rapid replacement of small cottages and trailer parks with homes spilling down from South Bethany suggests that Fenwick's placid way of life may be endangered). Its symbol may be the old lighthouse, but the heart of Fenwick Island is the inlet bridge 2.5 miles east on Route 54, and the slow, shallow tides of the marsh. And Fenwick Island State Park, with its plain changing rooms and great curving dunes, is all the getaway a solitary beachcomber could want. Although the Discover-Sea Ship wreck Museum (open daily 10-9; 708 Ocean Highway; 302/539-9366 or 888/743-5524), perched atop the bright pink Sea Shell City shop on the Coastal Highway just north of the Route 54 intersection, may seem like a classic tourist trap, it's actually an intriguing collection of mostly 18th-century artifacts: squatty rum bottles, square gin decanters and wine bottles; firearms, shells and cannon; pottery, silver and pewter; personal effects; crucifixes, crosses and an Indian or Southeast Asian goddess; and hundreds of coins, including a chestful of British and Irish ha'pennies from the Faithful Steward, which went down in 1785 near Lewes on its way from Londonderry to Philadelphia. And the most recent addition, a large assembly of White Star Line memorabilia from the Republic -- whose far more "successful" 1909 sinking, with 1,500 rescued and only four lives lost, may have helped seduce its owners into underestimating the safety precautions required for the Titanic -- is sure to lure a whole new generation of treasure-seekers. Antiques-lovers will be amazed at the sheer quantity of paintings, porcelain, silver, linens, furniture and accessories at the Seaport Antique Village on Route 54 at the inlet bridge (open 10-6 daily; 302/436-8962). The complex -- a former sea captain's cottage and a fishing shack now joined by a great neo-colonial gallery and set up in a series of museumlike living and dining rooms -- is a mix of real antiques, replicas, "antique" replicas and just plain items crowded frame to fringe. Hidden about the warren of rooms are some amazing finds, from a collection of exquisite Victorian oyster plates to ivory-handled fish knives and lobster forks (for those who know how to use them) and brilliant red and gold shell-shaped 19th-century tea-and-sandwich plates made in Japan. Incidentally, although the Fenwick Island Lighthouse (south side of Route 54, just west of Route 1) is the obvious landmark, the waist-high white marker in front of it may be of more interest, especially for readers of Thomas Pynchon's recent "Mason & Dixon." Erected in 1751 (more than a century before the lighthouse), the precursor to the Mason-Dixon survey, it marked the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, of which Delaware was then a part; it bears the Calvert coat of arms on the Maryland side, and William Penn's crest on the other. One of the area's most popular and reliable restaurants is David Twining's Nantucket's, on the Coastal Highway at Atlantic Avenue (302/539-2607 or 800/362-3463). There the appetizers -- quahog-scallop "chowdah," a smoked seafood combo, soft-shells and lamb chop "lollipops," all for $6 to $9 -- are so good you may never make it to the more traditional entrees. Although the menu at Mancini's Italian Restaurant (907 Coastal Highway; 302/537-4224) isn't particularly trendy (Bolognese-style spinach lasagna for $12.95; penne with broccoli, roasted red peppers and chicken, $14.50), the restaurant is the sort of place that makes casual dining and home-simmered sauces so satisfying. And former Baltimoreans may well find a nostalgic home at the Greek-Italian Captain Pete's right across from Nantucket's (302/537-5900). But for the glory of the evening sunset, head across Route 54 to the second-floor dining room at Shark's Cove (behind the Seaport Antique Village on Madison Avenue; 302/436-8600) for classic Ocean City-style surf-and-turf done better than most O.C. spots (crab cake and filet, $24; Cajun-blackened mako $18) and with a good mid-priced wine list; or to Tom & Terry's family-style cottage restaurant a little farther east on Route 54 (302/436-4151), which leans more to the Crisfield's stuff-and-fry style (breaded soft-shells, $18.95; stuffed shrimp with crab imperial, $23.95).
If you don't want a full meal but do want a sunset, step into the Tiki Bar of Hanna's Hideout, at Route 54 and the Bay (302/539-3095). Basically a wooden deck built over the water, the Tiki Bar is the ideal spot to watch the returning Waverunners and parasailers as they head back to the adjacent Shark's Cove Watersports rental shop. The exotic drinks have slacker/stoner names like Parrot Head and Chunky Monkey, and if the nomenclature of these elixirs don't make you chill out, the contents will. About a quarter-mile past the Tiki Bar on Route 54 is the Bay Cafe (302/436-3622), a two-level restaurant and bar whose abundance of ferns makes it seem like something out of the '70s. Management has been booking live bands (usually beach regulars Tin Pan Alley) for swing nights, so if you need your swing dance fix, this is one of the few places on the beach to get it. Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 1450, Bethany Beach, DE 19930. Call 302/539-21000 or 800/962-7873. Web site: Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce
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