I had set out on an East Coast road trip, stopping in major cities to build my portfolio with new timelapse shots of skylines.

After a successful stop in Washington, D.C., I headed for Philadelphia. Rather than taking the usual I-95 route north, I detoured through Delaware to catch the ferry from Lewes to Cape May, a picturesque seaside town I’d always wanted to visit.

I boarded the last ferry of the evening and looked forward to a relaxing 90-minute crossing of the Delaware Bay.

About 20 minutes before arriving in Cape May, the ferry suddenly stopped moving. After nearly two hours of waiting, passengers began growing restless, but no one on board seemed to know what was happening.

Finally, an announcement came over the PA system: the ferry could not safely enter the channel leading to the Cape May terminal. Discussing with a crew member, I learned that an unexploded ordnance dating back to World War II had been spotted near the jetty. As a precaution, we were now forced to turn back to Delaware.

What I didn’t know at the time was that finding wartime ordnance along the Atlantic Coast is not that uncommon. In the summer of 2022, at least seven unexploded devices washed ashore at Assateague Island National Seashore. Most dated back to the 1940s, when these areas were used by the U.S. Navy as a testing range for rockets and bombs.

As for our ferry, the United States Coast Guard kept the channel closed until daylight, when a bomb squad was dispatched to neutralize the explosive.

A peaceful 90-minute crossing had turned into a five-hour trip back to where we started.

Given the late hour, the ferry service offered passengers complimentary hotel stays, which came as a real relief after the long day.

What started as an annoying inconvenience ended up becoming one of the most memorable story of the trip.