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Service with a Smile > Sept. 16, 2011
Written by Staff Reports Friday, September 16, 2011 07:44 pm
Gabbi DiCrosta, Cara Swetsky and Brianna VanderHorn of Cool Scoops Ice Cream Parlor in North Wildwood.
Slow catch seen as an aftereffect of Irene
Written by Heather Holtzapfel James Friday, September 16, 2011 03:53 pm
September usually brings beautiful weather, fewer crowds – and great fishing. But so far this month, anglers are finding fishing to be difficult and sometimes impossible.
Hurricane Irene surely made her mark and is still being blamed for the dirty water. With just one week left till the end of flounder season (Sept. 25), anglers are hoping the water quality will improve – and quickly. Other anglers, at this point, may take a little break and hold out for the larger stripers to come through as fall nears.
A few tautog have been caught, and they can be continued to be targeted until Nov. 15, limit one fish per day. The black sea bass season continues until Oct. 11 but will pick back up again on Nov. 1. There is a limit of 25 fish at 12.5 inches or more.
Frank Jankowski of Frank's Boat Rentals in Strathmere reported that few boats have been out recently due to the unsettled weather. Those who did venture out between the raindrops managed to get a couple of flounder on their lines, but mostly all were shorts and had to be released.
There has been no lull in the crabbing, though. Crabbers are still coming in with buckets full.
One Kook's Surfari with Bill Barlow > To ride the big ones, you have to earn it
Last Updated on Thursday, January 26, 2012 12:48 pm Written by Bill Barlow Friday, September 16, 2011 03:48 pm
As the old surfer saying goes, September separates the kooks from the shredders.
OK, that’s a saying I made up over the weekend while trying to slog out through a whitewater blast that knocked me and my longboard over and back toward the beach.
I thought I had timed everything right. I thought I had enough speed. I thought I’d make it over, but instead, it was fins up, nose over, and me holding on as best I could before ending up back where I started in waist-deep water.
The waves were strong, but nothing compared to the Katia-powered swell on Friday, when I stayed on the beach with a camera. Those waves were big, and strong, and many slammed shut with a 20-foot-tall backwash.
Read more: One Kook's Surfari with Bill Barlow > To ride the big ones, you have to earn it
Bag check > Lucy Kataryniak
Written by CHRISTIE ROTONDO Friday, September 16, 2011 03:31 pm
What essentials do people carry around in their purses and beach bags? Join us each week as we take a peek into people’s bags and catch a glimpse of their personality. And don’t be surprised when Freetime reporter Christie Rotondo walks up to you on the beach or boardwalk and asks, “What’s in your bag?”
When Lucy Kataryniak of Old Bridge visited Morey’s Piers in Wildwood, she made sure to stuff her teal beach bag with snacks for her kids.
Inside her large bag were juice boxes and bags of chips, along with all the items her children asked her to hold so they wouldn’t get lost while they went ride hopping: hats, sunglasses, money, etc.
Found it in … Marmora
Written by CHRISTIE ROTONDO Friday, September 16, 2011 01:00 am
Change is good; it’s natural and inevitable. The owners of Izzadorables boutique understand that variety is the spice of life, so they offer jewelry that customers can change with their mood. The sterling silver Kameleon rings above have removable centers that can be swapped out with a variety of pieces. Necklaces and bracelets are also available. Now that’s progress.
‘Native Species’ art exhibit opens at Bird Observatory
Written by Staff Reports Thursday, September 15, 2011 04:22 pm
Sluice Creek Gallery, sponsored by New Jersey Audubon and the Cape
May Bird Observatory, will present a new wildlife art exhibit Sept.17-Oct.31.
Titled “Native Species,” the exhibit focuses on native plants and trees, birds and animals that are indigenous to the South Jersey region.
Some 21 artists who live and work in southern New Jersey will show their artwork, which includes bird carvings in wood, photographs of native plants, sculpture, fiber art, gourds and bowls, jewelry and more.
The exhibit emphasizes the importance of conserving what is natural to the local environment.
Read more: ‘Native Species’ art exhibit opens at Bird Observatory
Exhibit recalls Cape town that washed into the sea
Written by Staff Reports Thursday, September 15, 2011 04:16 pm
The town of South Cape May, just west of the Cape May beachfront, was founded in 1894. By the 1950s the entire town had disappeared into the sea – all of its homes either destroyed by storms or picked up and moved to other locations.
In its heyday, South Cape May had more than 40 homes and hundreds of summer residents. Joseph Bucher, one of the last residents, chronicled life in the resort before the Atlantic Ocean swallowed it. The book, “Remembering South Cape May: The Jersey Shore Town That Vanished Into the Sea,” is co-authored by his son-in-law Robert Kenselaar.
Kenselaar is the guest curator of an exhibit that examines the rise and fall of the community that once stood on the land that today is the Nature Conservancy’s Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge.
Read more: Exhibit recalls Cape town that washed into the sea
Katia's Party
Last Updated on Friday, September 09, 2011 01:23 pm Written by Bill Barlow Friday, September 09, 2011 01:11 pm
Hurricane Katia threw some big waves at Cape May County on Friday. At the Ocean City Boardwalk on Friday morning, surfers had a hard time getting out to the break through powerful whitewater, and once out, currents quickly took them south, but a few surfers managed some rides. Conditions were expected to improve later in the day, and forecasts call for smaller waves over the weekend.
Photos by Bill Barlow
One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > The sea is alive with wonders
Written by Bill Barlow Friday, September 09, 2011 01:08 pm
… and some of them bite
The lifeguards were finishing up for the day in Ocean City. In fact, the beach patrol had packed up the stand for this beach at the south end before the start of the holiday weekend, which meant the nearest lifeguard was blocks away.
Still, there were plenty of people around on this early Sunday evening, and at this moment, most of them were on their feet, staring at the break, many pointing or gesturing, some inching into the water.
Was it a rescue, or someone who needed rescue? The waves weren’t very rough, but could someone have gotten in trouble out there? Wait a minute, the people on the beach were smiling.
Dolphin.
Read more: One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > The sea is alive with wonders
One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Feel the fear, but don’t let it hold you back
Written by Bill Barlow Friday, September 02, 2011 04:54 pm
Is everybody tired of talking about Irene yet?
Did you stay, where’d you go, when did you get back? Did you surf, and when?
For the record, I got in on Monday, and was content to merely point a camera at the big swell with the curl near the Music Pier in Ocean City on Sunday night.
The biggest waves were a mess, but later, when Irene was beating up Vermont, came the cleaner, surfable waves.
It also brought in some humbling moments for us summer surfers, who are more used to easing in to ripples than suicide drops.
The paddle out was longer, and tougher, and no matter where I went or how I timed it I’d be struggling into the teeth of the next set, pushing against a wall of whitewater and arriving at the lineup gasping for breath and collapsing on the board.
Eager to conceal my innate kookdom, I’d bandy about practiced phrases like “These are fun little waves,” or “The real swell is gone, but I figured I’d paddle out tonight, too.” I don’t think I fooled anyone.
Read more: One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Feel the fear, but don’t let it hold you back
One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > High Tides Fund brings community together
Last Updated on Thursday, August 18, 2011 04:36 pm Written by Bill Barlow Thursday, August 18, 2011 04:33 pm
Most of us have been there, on one side or the other. It’s a big ocean, but it can be crowded, and let’s face it, surfing takes up a lot of room. You need a particular kind of wave, and if things go right, hundreds of feet of empty to make a nice run.
So sometimes there’s a certain amount of frustration when someone pops up where you don’t want them.
Seen from the other side, maybe you’re just trying to enjoy a nice time at the beach, take a quick jump in the ocean – which belongs to everybody, right? – and suddenly there’s some surfer yelling at you. He was about a half a block away a minute ago.
Or you want to get started on this whole surfing thing yourself, and what better way than to get in the water where all the surfers congregate? Only when you get out there, it becomes clear most of the surfers would rather you took up knitting and left the break entirely.
But that’s not how it always goes.
Read more: One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > High Tides Fund brings community together
One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Here are the waves we’ve been waiting for
Written by Bill Barlow Friday, August 12, 2011 11:33 am
This is what we have been waiting for.
I have a personal conviction – it borders on a superstition – that one should never speak poorly of an ocean. That applies all the more so if you are planning on spending much time in that ocean, especially when it’s so much older, and bigger and stronger than you.
So I’m not one to complain about the waves.
But between you and me, the waves this summer haven’t been ideal. They were tiny, or choppy, or both. Some days they were close to nonexistent, while others broke about four feet from the beach.
The water would range from bathtub warm to icy, usually dropping quick and without warning – and then there was one day with a big, clean, heavy swell, and the Atlantic’s majesty kicked out these freight trains with a steep vertical drop that seemed designed more to snap spinal columns than to offer a fun day in the sun.
But this week – well, this week was sweet.
The weekend was a little rough. The waves had size and power, but were so choppy it was hard to get any kind of a ride. It wasn’t impossible, but as one surfer told me on the beach, it was a lot of work. Plus, she said, when you took a tumble, you could never tell where the board would land.
Read more: One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Here are the waves we’ve been waiting for
One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Surfers are connecting to yoga on and off the water
Last Updated on Friday, August 05, 2011 02:03 pm Written by Bill Barlow Thursday, August 04, 2011 03:18 pm
Two traditions, both very old and each with roots near other oceans, are blending at the Jersey Shore.
It took a little while to even notice. There would be a few more guys in a local yoga class that had been almost all women, and maybe a couple of them were wearing board shorts. More telling, they would be talking about waves before class began, sometimes in detail.
Surfing, meet yoga.
Yoga began millennia ago in ancient India. It has been practiced for an immensely long time. Literally, civilizations have risen and fallen since the practice of combining spiritual practice and body postures began. What is called hatha yoga, the kind most familiar in the United States, is only a few hundred years old.
Like surfing, until pretty recently yoga had a distinctly counterculture feel to it, as if it were restricted to those who loved sandalwood and talked a lot about auras. And, also like surfing, it has gone distinctly mainstream, with yoga mats and other gear now available at Walmart and classes offered in most towns.
Read more: One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Surfers are connecting to yoga on and off the water
Kids get a taste of competitive surfing
Written by Bill Barlow Thursday, July 28, 2011 04:05 pm
Some of these groms can shred.
The sky is overcast, and the waves at Seventh Street are choppy and breaking in close. The waves look to be about waist high or bigger, but to be fair, most of these waists belong to 10-year-olds. It’s Monday afternoon, and the second of the Ocean City Surfing Association’s three summer surf contests is in full swing.
The contest is held each year for kids under 14, one of several under the South Jersey District of the Eastern Surfing Association. Some of the top local surfers got their start at the contest, a fact that does not seem lost on the most competitive of these kids.
Chase Deegan, a 10-year-old from Stone Harbor, seemed pretty nonplussed about answering a reporter’s questions after his first heat, one in which he advanced to the next round after a nice series of rides.
One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Pro surfing takes flight
Written by Bill Barlow Friday, July 22, 2011 10:03 am
Position available: Requirements include extensive travel and mad surf skills. A recent addition to the minimum skill set – flight.
Welcome to the world of pro surfing.
New Jersey was never one of the big launch pads for a surfing career. In fact, to hear some riders tell it, a surfer with Jersey roots has to work extra hard to be taken seriously on the world stage.
One of the first from South Jersey to hit the big time was Matt Keenan, who graduated from Ocean City High School in 1993 and turned pro the same year. He spent a little time at Stockton, but kept getting interrupted by tournaments and chances to travel. He decided to tour full time, and he spent more than a decade on the road seeing the world, or at least the world’s beaches, and ranking in the top 100 best surfers internationally, from 1995 to 2003.
It’s not all fun and games, he says, being away from home 260 days a year while trying to keep a life going. But he doesn’t exactly make it sound awful, either.
Read more: One Kook’s Safari with Bill Barlow > Pro surfing takes flight
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