Bethany Beach

WHAT TO DO Five things to do in Ocean City 1. COUNT DOLPHINS / / Volunteer to help staff from the National Aquarium in Baltimore conduct Maryland's annual dolphin count Thursday. The count, which helps assess the health of the bottlenose dolphin population, is part of the aquarium's Beyond the Boardwalk summer program, which includes a fundraiser at Seacrets on Friday and Family Fun Day from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at Sunset Park. Call 410-371-9802 for locations and details. 2. TAKE A LEAP / / Go skydiving high above the shore at Ocean City Skydiving Center.

The Bethany Beach area lives up to its billing as a "quiet resort," but that doesn't mean nothing ever changes. In fact, several new places to eat and shop are cropping up this season. Here are just a few of them: Berry Good Treats, 108 Garfield Parkway, Bethany Beach, 302-537-9679. This downtown ice-cream/doughnut shop has been renovated and is under new management. It also has an outdoor water station for dogs and serves Frosty Paws frozen dog treats. Steakhouse 26, 238 Atlantic Ave., Millville, 302-539-0626.

A New Jersey company is proposing to build about 200 wind turbines, each taller than the Statue of Liberty, in the Atlantic Ocean or Delaware Bay that would whirl within view of some of the region's most popular beaches. Officials with Bluewater Wind of Hoboken hope their $1 billion offshore wind farm will be the first in U.S. waters. Similar proposals are pending for wind farms off Cape Cod, Mass., and Long Island, N.Y., but they have drawn protests and lawsuits from homeowners who say their water views would be defiled by the towers.

I've just realized it: I am a Type Bay personality. For half a century, I was under the impression I was Type Beach. Since childhood, my idea of a real vacation was going to the shore; the closer to the ocean the better. A mile from the beach? It might as well be 100. I wanted oceanfront, if at all possible -- the kind of place where I could open a window at night and let the breeze cool my sunburn as the surf softly drummed me to sleep before another day of rough and tumble shoreplay.

No beach town this close to four major East Coast cities is going to be a "quiet resort," in spite of the Bethany Chamber of Commerce's optimistic labeling. Not in the summer season anyway. But Bethany Beach at least has fewer hotels and motels to attract short-term visitors, fewer funky boardwalk attractions, fewer honky-tonk bars and more returning families than most resorts a gas tank away from Baltimore. Nothing much may happen when you vacation at Bethany Beach, and that's just fine with most people.

AMOS FRANCIS HUTCHINS, JR., age 77, of Bethany Beach, DE, died Wednesday, January 11, 2006 at the Beebe Medical Center in Lewes. A devoted family man, Mr. Hutchins cherished time with his beloved wife, Nellie Truslow Hutchins, their four children and 13 grandchildren. The family gathered often to celebrate holidays and birthdays at Quillens Point in Sussex County where he and Nell built a home on Indian River Bay after his 1985 retirement from the Baltimore, MD office of CIGNA, formerly the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company.

"Since the weather is so perfect, we decided to go to Bethany Beach, and we're going to have the full Thanksgiving meal right at the beach. We've got family coming in from Denver, Colo., Vermont and Frederick. There will be 13 people. Fortunately, the beach house is winterized, but I'm going to find out if the fireplace is still working once I get there." BALTIMORESUN.COM/LIVE for a comprehensive list of weekend events.

The Tidewater Inn, an anchor of the town center of this Eastern Shore community since the 1940s, was sold at auction yesterday for $4.225 million to a Montgomery County-based developer known for its residential projects in Fenwick Island and Bethany Beach in Delaware. Carl M. Freeman Associates, a 60-year-old company with headquarters in Olney, has assured the town that the building will remain a hotel, Easton officials said. But a company spokesman declined to discuss plans yesterday.

On Wednesday, February 16, 2005, at the Lewes Convalescent Center in Lewes, DE, DORIS E. O'MAHONY, 71, of Dagsboro, DE, formerly of Lanham, MD. A Mass of Christian Burial will be offered on Friday, February 18, at 10 A.M., at St. Ann's Catholic Church in Bethany Beach, DE. Friends may call on Friday morning from 8:30 to 9:30 A.M. at the Bethany Beach Chapel of Melson Funeral Services on West Avenue in Ocean View, DE. Interment will be in the Deleware Veterans...

George Garland Norris, a weapons technician at Edgewood Arsenal and a World War II veteran, died Wednesday of pancreatic cancer at the home of his daughter in Punxsutawney, Pa. The Bethany Beach, Del., resident, who lived for many years in Baltimore County, was 77. Born in West Baltimore, Mr. Norris attended Polytechnic Institute before running away at age 14 to join the Army. His mother tracked him down about a year and a half later and ordered him to come home. In 1944, Mr. Norris joined the Navy, with his mother's blessing, and went to war aboard destroyers.