On this week’s travel post I won’t take you very far, but stay in the US, in fact in New Jersey. The first time I came to Seaside Park NJ and Sandy Hook was just over a year ago, July 2011. A couple of months earlier we had moved to NJ and I was taking a trip by myself scouting for places to go windsurfing. Among them was Seaside Park NJ, but that particular day I found nobody there, so I continued to Sandy Hook. When you travel to Sandy Hook from the north you have to cross a bridge, from which you have a magnificent view of 1) the bay 2) the ocean 3) Sandy Hook and 4) south to Sea Bright. Unfortunately when you are driving like I was, the view will be gone very quickly and you have to decide whether you want to go right or left, to Sandy Hook or to Sea Bright. I, of course, drove right and being July and Sandy Hook a national park I had to pay an admission fee to get there. The fees are ($15 per car in 2012) waived from Labor Day till Memorial Day. I had read on the internet that for windsurfing parking lot C is the spot mostly used, so that is where I went. I first checked the ocean side, but only found sun bathers. After a few first photos and a view of the NYC skyline I headed to the bay side.
And guess what? I had found my first New Jersey windsurfers, Jerry and Tony. Yes, I know their names, because I also made first contact. The wind wasn’t really that strong and they were both taking a break and stood chatting at the shore, holding their windsurf gear. So, I went up to them, introduced myself and pestered them with questions about the windsurf spot, before they went off for another run. I hadn’t surfed in four months, because our gear was still in a container on the Atlantic, so I was really itching while I watched them. Here are a few more photos I took that day.
Naturally, since it is just over an hour away from our home, we made Sandy Hook our ‘home spot’ for windsurfing and have since returned many times. We met both Jerry and Tony again, as well as a few other windsurfers. September last year and also this year saw the annual Fun Fest @ Sandy Hook by the New Jersey Windsurfing and Watersports Association. Unfortunately I was not able to go this year, when they had a lot more wind, but last year I was there. Not to participate, but to take photos. These are some of them. The full post incl. photos can be found here.
And finally this year we also made it to Seaside Park NJ. The day before I flew to Germany a couple of weeks ago, we had the best wind forecast in months. So, naturally we skipped preparing for my trip and instead went to Seaside Park NJ for windsurfing. Due to the very strong wind forecast we only packed our smallest gear, but even that was too big! Nevertheless we got a few hours of fun, overpowered windsurfing in. And we got to know a new spot, too. These are some of the photos from Seaside Park.
And that’s it for this week’s travel with the letter ‘S’ – hope to see you soon again.
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This is my contribution today to round 5 of Alphabe- Thursday hosted by Jenny Matlock. If you have a moment please visit her website and check out other ‘student’s’ work and her ‘terrific tangents’.
