August 17th 2016
Point Pleasant, NJ
With the gear and kayak loaded up last night, Arlene and I awoke to what should have been an easy morning, but as always happens, there are things you forget and sure enough I forgot to wrap up some e-mails and tasks before we hit the road. I was scrambling to get out of the house and we didn’t hit the road till after 10am, an hour behind schedule.
The drive down to Sandy Hook, NJ was pretty uneventful until we passed a VW Bus on I-95 and it got me so excited thinking of Sandy the Bus and the good times I had traveling in her. We arrived at Gunnison Beach shortly after 1pm. It didn’t take long before we met up with my Lake Champlain friends, Tom and Mary and were introduced to their friends Martha and Steve. Ironically, they met in Key West, FL, my destination so I enjoyed how connected we all were.
Unlike the last time I was here, today was a perfect beach day. A nice Westerly breeze had replaced the Southerly gale I originally arrived in almost two weeks ago. Even the humidity had settled down. After relaxing on the beach for a bit, we all headed down to the water and went for a swim. I realized that this was the first time I’d been swimming in the ocean since New Years Day 2014 when I did the Polar Bare swim on Jones Beach, New York. I missed the ocean and the salt water felt wonderful on my skin again.
By 5pm, we were ready to pack it up and head to dinner, but I still need a place to stay for the night. That’s when Martha and Steve invited Arlene and I to stay at their home down in Point Pleasant, NJ. I took them up on the offer and they headed out. Tom and Mary invited us out to dinner with them as they were going to show me a potential launch site for the morning right by their place in the Highlands. We followed them to their B&B.
Arriving at Tom and Mary’s place under the Sandy Hook Bridge; I noticed the current was fast, real fast. It looked like the water on the Pemi River in New Hampshire where I’ve kayaked before, but this was all tidal. I began to look at the tide times as I’d need to run with this tide and not fight it and I saw that the current here ran at 3 knots at High Tide. When I began to study the map, I realized that I would hit the end of this bay in just a couple of hours, less if I was running at peak Flood Tide. I asked Arlene if she wanted to hang around to portage me and then Mary asked me why I don’t I just start in Point Pleasant where I was staying.
I didn’t have a good argument against Mary’s suggestion. Her suggestion was a smart one, one I had not considered. The more I thought of it, this is what I should do. After all, I was already breaking the unbroken paddle between Canada and Key West, what difference did a few more miles make. I made the decision; we’d start from the southern end of the Point Pleasant Canal on Bay Head Harbor in the morning.
Tom and Mary then took us up the street to Off the Hook for dinner. The food was delicious and the company was wonderful. Sadly, it was the last time I’d be seeing my good friends for a long time. We may meet up in Key West if I get there in time, but if I miss them down there, we won’t see each other again unless I return to Vermont. Even sadder, I forgot to get a picture of all of us at dinner so now I must meet up with them again.
So here we are, just around the corner from Jenkinson’s on the Boardwalk. Jenkinson’s was a place Arlene and I visited early on in our relationship and now here we are again, decades later and under very different circumstances. It’s rather funny how cyclical life is.
Day 47 Done
