Beautiful, sleek, muscled and wild. You’ll find that at North Shores, both in and out of the water. It’s where the women and dolphins go to play. While there can be no guarantee of dolphin spotting, you’re certain to get an eyeful of fun-loving women. Who knows how it got started, but North Shores is the beach for the women of Rehoboth, the place to see and be seen.

Officially known as Gordon’s Pond State Park, North Shores is located about a mile north of the boardwalk, and you should be able to stroll there in twenty or thirty minutes. Should you drive, there’s a huge parking area (but hurry—it fills up quickly on the weekends), and if you’re an out-of-state resident you’ll pay a $5.00 admission fee. Delaware residents pay $2.50. To get there, follow Ocean Drive (it parallels, what else?, the ocean) north until it dead ends at the Gordon Pond State Park gate.

Once you’re on the beach you’ll notice a stone jetty jutting out into the water. Traditionally, but certainly not always the case, women tend to set up on the right side of the jetty, with men veering to the left side. This is by no means a hard and fast thing—women and men commingle and the occasional heterosexual couple will wander in. That can be great sport, especially if they have older children. The game becomes: will they stay when they realize what the predominant population is? Most do, but it’s amusing to see those who, when the light goes on, move rapidly, generally with heads lowered, further on down the beach. It should also be mentioned that if you do choose to sit on the left hand side, pooches are welcomed year round, but do keep them on a leash (that’s strictly enforced as are prohibitions against nudity).

Once you’ve been able to tear your eyes away from the gaggle of gals and found the perfect spot to put your blanket, you might want to take note of the refreshment stand right on the beach. Hot dogs, chips, soda, etc. Or, to save yourself all that schlepping you can rent a big beach umbrella or beach chair on the spot. Settle in, relax and try to decide which is hotter—the sand or the babes.

Now, for those other magnificent creatures in the area—dolphins. When they’re visible they can be quite a scene-stealer. I’ve seen them most frequently in the early afternoon swimming in the direction of the boardwalk. Late afternoon, they often return in the opposite direction.

Oceanographers may be able to tell you where they’re going, but I couldn’t. You don’t have to glue your eyes to the horizon. Generally there’s a murmur of, "the dolphins are here" that goes through the crowd. Look up and you may see them just gliding by or they may decide to put on a show of leaping out of the air and landing on their sides or backs with great splashes. Don’t expect to see that famous Flipper tail stand, or look for one of them to jump into the air and ring a bell—this is not Sea World.

Sure, we all know that dolphins are mammals, but did you know that their scientific family name is Dolphinidae, or that the largest dolphins are Orcas, killer whales? The ones you’ll see here are bottlenose dolphins, so called because their beaks are shaped like a bottle (beer or Bordeaux, the choice is yours!). They swim in groups called pods. Dolphins chatter as much as any Happy Hour crowd, and probably make more sense to each other. They moan, groan, squeak, whistle and grunt (ever had a date like that?), all geared to warn of possible dangers, keep track of others in the group even when they can’t be seen, alert others to food in the area, and many more things. Dolphin-speak keeps a lot of scientists throughout the world busy.

Bottlenose dolphins are very social and playful animals, just like the women at North Shores. They’ve been known to approach boats and people in the water in a seemingly friendly fashion, letting themselves be touched. (Hmm, does this also transfer to the sun worshipers on shore?) As for that myth that if you’re swimming near dolphins and start to drown, they will save you by pushing you to shore? Well, don’t count on it. There have been claims that dolphins have saved people but there is certainly no evidence that that’s a usual pattern. Plus, remember if they can push people into shore, they can push people out to sea as well!

Above all, it is important to remember that bottlenose dolphins also can be unpredictable and aggressive—to each other and to humans. They must be respected as the wild and beautiful animals they are. And, the same can be said about the women of North Shores.