By Jim Merritt, Past President of the Friend of Island Beach State Park
Lucky me, I live here year round. I am indeed fortunate. I live four blocks from the entrance to Island Beach State Park, one of the most beautiful places on the eastern seaboard.
Several times a week my wife and I walk the beach into the Park’s northern natural area. The contrast is startling as we leave our community of beachfront condos, restaurants, and private homes and look south at a line of sand dunes stretching into the distance as far as the eye can see. Often we are the only people on the beach.
The park is ours alone.
In the spring following Super Storm Sand volunteers from Friends of Island Beach State Park and other organizations planted hundreds of American Dune grass seedlings to help hold sand. Today these plants continue grow pushing up through the sand as the dunes grow. It will take years for the dunes to regain their original height.
Dunes grow slowly and change is difficult to see. But the ocean and the shoreline change rapidly. Sometimes the beach is scoured clean. Our tracks may be the only marks on the sand. Other times pockets of gravel, shells, and occasionally sea glass, accumulate along the water’s edge. Sand bars, sometimes completely exposed at low tide, channel streams of clear water along the shore before it rushes seaward in a rip current. Northeast storms eat away the beach scalloping the shoreline and building small sand cliffs. On-shore winds churn up the water and often wash in garbage that we dutifully collect. Off- shore winds blow rainbows of spray from the tops of breaking waves.
Beach walks in November and December are usually somewhat chilly due to the cold wind blowing off the ocean. Looking out to sea we watched schools of baitfish leaping out of the water as they were chased by striped bass, bluefish, and occasionally a whale. Loons swim in the surf diving for fish while gannets plunge from high in the air. Gulls bob on the ocean’s surface and are our only companions on the beach.
Even when it is chilly on the beach, Island Beach is a great place to visit in the winter.
Lucky you- You are a Friend of Island Beach State Park.
