Day at Sea

The Captain of My Ship. :-)

Before we bought the house this winter, we used to spend our summer weekends on a small boat the mister has owned for years (and years), docked near our apartment in Jersey City, NJ. Those of you familiar with Jersey City may not find this to be a particularly romantic vision of a day on the water, but we were docked in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty, overlooking the skyline of downtown Manhattan. It was our summer house at sea; a 10 minute drive from our urban apartment but a world away.

The past two summers, we’ve rented Jersey Shore houses and found ourselves using the “floating summer house” less and less. The mister attempted to sell it, but since gas was slowly creeping up to a billion dollars a gallon, no one even nibbled. This year, we got ourselves our own house (a slightly larger expense :-) and still no bites on the boat.

To make a long story even longer, M. still has the boat but got two of his friends to partner on the expenses. And when a day is as beautiful as yesterday was, it’s good to have a boat on the Jersey Shore.

Here’s the good ship Anonymous. (That really is her name. I’m not protecting her privacy.)



When shot at an artsy angle on a nice sunny day, she certainly looks younger than her 20 years.
We cruised up the Manasquan River and there are SOME houses along those riverbanks, let me tell you! And, naturally, most of them have docks. I suggested we upgrade to one of them so we have quicker access to the boat, since we’re stuck with it and all. Har har.

Here’s a couple of super sized houses along the way:



These new condos are a little too hotel-looking…

…but if I woke to this view, I’d learn to deal.

Here was the "find of the day" -- and for once it wasn't something I bought at an antique store, yard sale, etc. We dock and dined in Brielle and while we were eating, I noticed these scuba divers posing with their bounty:

I went over have a look-see, and they were super nice folks. It almost made we want to (pun alert) dive right in!

The pieces they found were mostly flotsam and jetsam, but the captain quickly retreated to the boat’s cabin, and returned to place this in my hand:

This brass knob was found in the wreckage of the Brunette, a “ hull steam freighter sank 1870, three miles off Manasquan Inlet. The Brunette is a great artifact wreck. Sometimes called the door knob wreck.”

They told me to look on their web site for a picture of the 1890s china they found last month on the Mohawk, a vessel, “built in 1902, 205' long and 32' wide. On April 6th 1917, she was temporally loaned to the Navy for coastal convoy duty. Sank October 1st 1917, after colliding with the SS Vennacher.”

How cool is that? Right here in New Jersey. In fact, one of the divers told me it's one of the best states to dive in -- there are apparently around 1500 wrecks from Long Island to Cape May (southern most tip of NJ).

On the way back home the sky looked amazing. I had gone to the Met Saturday and while checking out the J.M.W. Turner exhibit my friend mentioned her husband likes to point out a “Turner Sky” (and if you knew her hubby that would make you chuckle. Who knew he was such a Renaissance man!). I heart art and Turner’s work (and his sky) was new to me. In any event, this art history 101 lesson has led me to coin Sunday’s sky a “Simpsons Sky.” ;-)

I hope your weekend was as lovely as mine. Come back tomorrow...Hooked on Houses is hosting a Hooked on House Tours day, and I’m joining in on the par-tay. I’ll give you a peek at the most unique “houses” Ocean Grove, NJ, has to offer. They’re not made of brick, or stone, or wood, and there are 114 of them. (Look at me…a blog cliffhanger!)