A Walk on the Beach in March

I have to admit that I have never, in my life, taken a walk on the beach in March.  Two weekends ago we had some gorgeous weather for this time of year - 70º.  HWNSNBP and I took a drive to Barnegat on that Friday and stayed overnight at our friend's house.  We all went out to the lighthouse on Saturday morning and had a wonderful walk. 

The sun was warm, the water was calm, and the company was perfect.  We parked the car and took the path to the end where we climbed over the rail and down to the sand.  We walked along, parallel to the inlet and took note of all that had washed up the previous weekend during the storm that devastated many areas.  In fact, we had noticed on our drive to the lighthouse that many of the private beach entrances were unaccessible as the water had pushed the sand up so high as to block most of them.

I am always intrigued by the composition of the shells and flotsam in the sand.  The sun shining on the sand cast shadows as well as illuminated the sand crystals.  We walked and picked shells as we did and were even lucky enough to find some sea glass though I suspect that others before us had done the same.

Here are a couple of pictures of the lighthouse from the water's edge.  Notice the clear azure sky.  It was amazing.

There were boats going in and out of the inlet and fishermen on the rocks.  There were also photographers with some serious photo equipment taking pictures from the rocks on the inlet.  We think they were photographing the birds in the water.  It was interesting to watch some of the diving birds take their dives while we tried to guess where they would come up.  It felt like they were underwater for an eternity.  I only took a few pictures as my camera card is pretty much still filled up with pictures from the Philly Flower Show we attended earlier this month.  I will try to get those posted soon.

From the lighthouse we traveled further south to Tuckerton and the stamp store One Little Spark.  I hope to show you soon something made with the stamps that I bought there.  Then we headed back north on 9 to have lunch.  We ate at a Sonic - the first time for all of us.  It's a drive-in fast food chain that recently has come to New Jersey.  The servers come out to the car on roller skates. 

We spent some time looking at homes and then a quick trip to the $ store, Michael's, and on our way home.   It was kind of a whirlwind 24 hours, but enjoyable nonetheless.