Things are definitely not as I remember them at the Jersey shore.
This past weekend Dave and I drove to Boonton, NJ to spend the weekend with Maggie’s soon-to-be-in-laws, Arwed and Teresa. After a leisurely European style breakfast of hearty breads, cheese, meats, fruit and scrambled eggs, we decided to take a drive out to Sandy Hook to visit the beach and then have a late lunch at an authentic New Jersey pizzeria. Our mouths were watering just thinking about it!
Despite the torrential rain Dave and I drove through the day before, Saturday was the typical day-after-a-storm; all blue skies with a few puffy white clouds. Surprisingly traffic on the Parkway wasn’t even bad and soon we were entering the Sandy Hook National Park. Arwed drove us to the far end of the spit to the remains of Fort Hancock.
Fort Hancock was built a little more than a hundred years ago to defend New York Harbor from attack. Today it is maintained by the National Park Service and is pretty much a ghost town. But, despite its lack of care, the grandeur can still be seen in the identical officer quarters precisely spaced equidistant from each other as they look over the bay with the New York skyline in the background. On the ocean side, batteries and gun placements silently remain on watch, unmanned.
A little further south of Fort Hancock stands the Sandy Hook Lighthouse which actually predates the fort by almost one hundred and fifty years. Today it seems an odd location for a lighthouse since it sits so far away from the water’s edge but when built, the light sat only five hundred feet from the tip of the spit.
Tours to the top of the light were offered every half hour. Dave and Arwed couldn’t resist the climb so they signed up for the earliest available tour which allowed us an hour to explore more of the park. It seemed like the perfect time to check out the beach.
We got back in the car and drove to the first beach parking area we came to and began our hike to the shore.
It was a long walk; at least half a mile from the edge of the dunes to the shoreline. Part of the way we walked on a blue fiber walkway which protected the dunes and made the walk easier on our legs. As we stepped off the walkway we met an older gentleman who stopped and remarked rather dryly, that “the trouble with a nude beach is having to put on your trunks to go to the restrooms!” Oh you Jersey guys, I thought, always joking around…..
As were reached the lifeguard station, it became apparent that he wasn’t joking. There was a large sign that read; “Clothing Optional Beach on Right”.
All righty then.
Without seeming too obvious, I scanned to my right. It was definitely a clothing optional beach. I suppose I wasn’t as surprised that there were nude beaches, just that they were part of the National Park system. When they say there is something for everyone, they mean it!
My American prudishness caught me off guard. Even though I was fully dressed, I felt as though I were the naked person walking amid those in clothing. The naturists around me were not the least bit concerned about who would see them which put me a little more at ease but to say I was completely comfortable with the idea would be far from correct. Any preconceived notions I had about these places were blown away. This was not the playground of supermodels. In fact, most of the people I saw would have been unremarkable on any beach had they been dressed. They were totally ordinary, with ordinary bodies, much the same as my own. If I’d chosen to join them, what would have made me different would have been the paleness of my skin, not my unwanted lumps and bumps.
The distraction of the nude beach made us lose track of time and soon we were hustling our way back to the car so Dave and Arwed could take their lighthouse tour and then we could head off to the Jersey pizza we’d been so anxiously anticipating.
to be continued…..