#barnegat lighthouse

The rest of the Long Beach Island NJ trip pics (sequel to yesterday’s post). 

Top: my friend  Bill’s great shot of the Barnegat Lighthouse.  Love the sun illuminating the top like that.

Sunset on the second day – more delicate, more varied.  Just as pretty. (The other days it was overcast, no sunsets; and the last day was the sunset at the lighthouse.)

Perfect beach-walking at low tide, my favorite thing.  Water was still so lovely and warm.

Barnegat Lighthouse; Old Barney.  Fall foliage and juniper.  Terribly framed pic of a new (to me) statue of a Lighthouse Keeper, dedicated to “the Lighthouse Keepers of the world”. (I thought I had it set on a different aspect ratio, so a bunch of my nicer sunset pics at the end got cut off like this, and I was mad.)  Barnegat Light dates from 1859; it’s 172 feet tall. You can climb to the top; but not on the day we were there. (217 steps; finally climbing it by yourself as a kid was a rite of passage.)

At bottom, reflection of the sunset, looking east across the Barnegat Inlet to the ocean. You can clearly see the long jetty built WAY out there, on the LBI side; there is one north of the inlet as well, on the Island Beach side.  They help keep the channel open.  Located just within Barnegat bay is a port for commercial fishing vessels, plus a Coast Guard station, so it’s an important inlet.

Not pictured: got to watch a whole bunch of dolphins taking advantage of the fish runs just offshore in the mornings, from the deck.  And I mean like… 10 yards offshore.  REALLY close.  I have come to realize that, not being a morning person, and our family house not having a view of the ocean, I never knew dolphins were such a regular sight!  It was very cool to watch them fishing, and occasionally body-surfing the waves.  But I didn’t have a good camera with me and my phone’s zoom wasn’t up to the task. (I have some pics where *I* know that dark blotch there is a dolphin, but you know.)

Anyway, it was lovely to be in familiar places again. We’re already talking about going back next year.