Kayaking Noo Joisey
Recently, Carol and I were in northern NJ on a business trip and stopped off
to visit our friends Alec and Barbara in Stone Harbor, on the ocean, to the
south ("down th' shaw," in the local argot). Believe it or not, that's where
we went for our honeymoon, eons ago.
I had forgotten how expensive everything was there, like Switzerland. I was
told that the season is only 10 weeks, so they have to make hay while the sun
shines. While in such a wetlands paradise, we had to check out the local
kayaking, so we found a nearby rental establishment, right near the Museum of
the Wetlands, which is a great place, but another story.
Turns out that the rental place was doing a wetlands tour the very next day.
We were able to reserve a couple of Perception Sea Lions (the ONLY decent
closed deck boats in reasonable condition there), but only after we were able
to convince them that we had actually been in a kayak before. Most of their
"fleet" was pretty pathetic. When we showed up, it turned out that there
were a lot of beginners, so we all had to take a "lesson," which was
extremely basic. I had to insist on spray skirts and pumps, since the
management didn't want to provide them. Our leader/guru was reasonably
adept, with a nice Current Designs glass boat.
Fortunately, most of the participants were young, strong and apt, so we moved
along fairly well, after a slow launching exercise. We proceeded South along
the Intracoastal Waterway, past the scenic peninsula of Stone Harbor, lined
with fine homes, across from marshland. Then, we cut west, into a marshy
channel, to the heart of the wetlands, an area fragrant with the swampy
smells of my youth on the South Shore bay lands of Long Island, NY.
We paddled in and out of channels, gradually losing sight of most artifacts
of civilization. The bird life was phenomenal. Our leader rattled off
numerous species names faster than I could remember them. The egrets left the
strongest impression. The locals are even bigger on the environment there
than we are in SoCal. The area was very clean. Fuggetabout NJ stereotypes of
garbage dumps and beer-drinking louts, unless you like to hang around the clubs.
We stopped for a snack on the banks of a creek just off a scenic channel,
looking up at an unusual, large, disk-shaped rainbow, in a hazy sky. The
temperature was about 90 and the giant NJ mosquitoes and gnats were mildly
annoying. See what happens when you keep the environment too clean?
We headed around in a big circle, eventually going east on a boat channel.
Then we arrived back on the Intracoastal Waterway and returned to the Marina
where we launched, for about 2 ½ hours on the water. As those of you who know
me might guess, I was just getting started, so I extended my rental. Carol
opted to head in to town, then back to the hotel.
I headed alone down the Stone Harbor coast, through a bay, to an inlet just
North of Wildwood, toward Cape May and slipped out into the surf, over a sand
bar off the coast (now you know why I needed that spray skirt). The terrain
was very low-lying, with the brilliant white sand and marsh grass common to
the mid-Atlantic coast. There was a good breeze in the bay. It picked up to
over a gusting 20 knots, as I made my way to the ocean. I headed north along
the beach to enjoy the seaside view. Wearing my California kayak clothes
left me overdressed for the warm NJ summer Gulf Stream waters, with water
temperatures in the 70's and the hot sun beating down in the humid air- whew!
I could have explored all day, but the wind and waves were buffeting me,
alone, offshore, in a strange place. So, I decided not to push the envelope
too much and came back through the shallows along the coast, past a long
sandspit, lined with beachgoers and jet skiers. The latter were pounding and
jumping through the rough waters, but they were courteous and well behaved.
Since my long absence might worry Carol, I doubled timed it back, taking a
shortcut further shoreward, helped by the incoming tide. Getting back across
the boat channel was the most difficult part, since the afternoon traffic on
the IntraCoastal Waterway was heavier than the 101 through North Hollywood. I
paddled back into the marina, glowing with the joy of another nice day on the
water, savoring the differences of the Jersey shore.
George Miller
Submitted on August 19, 2001