daxs
Active member
I finally found a kayaking buddy and we decided to take advantage of the great weather last weekend to paddle together. He is active duty USCG and has run several SAR stations and Aids to Navigation stations so he is the perfect person to be out on the water with. We put in about 7am on Sunday outside of Avalon NJ. The sky was still pink from the sunrise. The water was like glass. And best of all no jet skis and very few boats on the water so it was quiet. We paddled to the beaches of Townsends Inlet off of Sea Isle City (SIC) . Jim is in the market for a new boat so he paddled around in my Impex Force 3 while I enjoyed an early morning swim. Then we continued to paddle on the bayside of SIC and cut into the channels off the intracoastal waterway. It was beautiful back in the channels. We did not see another boat for several hours. It was very quiet and all you could hear was the sounds of our paddles in the water. The brids were out in force including several types of gulls/terns that I had not seen before. One bird had a very thin, long red bill that it was using to forage for its food. Out of character for the area, there was a very large buzzard/vulture feasting on a dead common gull. It was huge and the other birds stayed quite a distance away. The Osprey nests were full; many of the birds still young and begging for food. Some parts of the channels were shallow and you could see the bottom covered with some type of snail or periwinkle. There were several sandy beaches that seemed alive; they were covered with moving crabs. Fish were jumping out of the water all over the place and I am surprised that one did not land in one of the boats. At one point there was a school of some type of small silvery fish that appeared to be flying across the water. The water skimming was followed by a great deal of commotion. Obviously the school of fish was being chased by something much larger and some the the smaller fish were getting eaten by the larger fish. The trip back was a bit more of a challenge because the tide was going out and the water was very shallow. Also by this time, the boats and jetskis were out on the water and the solitude of the morning was lost. We spent about 5 hours exploring the back bays. Our legs and backs were stiff as we got out of out boats. On this trip, I had help loading my boat on top the car so it made for an easy ending to a great morning on the water.
