If you’re looking to take a break from the beaches of Delaware’s Fenwick Island, be sure to check out the area’s unique Shipwreck Museum. It’s stocked with an abundance of treasures plucked from shipwrecks both local and distant.

You enter through a cheesy seashell shop, complete with a homemade animatronic welcomer and claw game. Go upstairs, and you’ll find the life passion of a diver who personally collected most of these remains from shipwrecks. (Some of the artifacts on display were also donated by the public.) 

The museum holds about 10,000 artifacts, making it one of the largest collections of its kind along the Mid-Atlantic seaboard. It’s full of treasures like gold bars, a desiccated Feejee mermaid, a taxidermy shark, and a bone from a walrus’s penis, known as an oosik. 

There’s also a handmade diorama of a shipwreck recovery scene, which includes blue cellophane, rubber fish, and tiny diving men. It’s an ever-changing exhibit, so there’s no guarantee as to what you’ll uncover.