we were finally done with our challenge lights and there was just one more thing i really wanted to do. very close to the tinicum lighthouse, this old, abandoned lightship sits in a few feet of water.
we had researched it and called the marina, but the man at the marina said there was no way we could see the ship. he said it was sitting in mud, basically, and it needed so much work, there was just no way. the marina owner had taken ownership of the lightship with the hopes of restoring it, but it was just too daunting and hadn't happened yet. i hope someday it will!
this picture is just stunning to me! all these little boats around the marina, and then the big, majestic lightship. oh i hope it will be restored! and writing this totally makes me think of the lily tomblin quote, "i always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. then i realized i was somebody." someday!
anywho, after we'd finished at tinicum we had to figure out our next step. there was a program at the visitors center that we'd wanted to go to, but we were already late and still hadn't eaten, so we decided to skip that. and then i was able to talk them into going to see the lightship!!! i'm always such a good influence, huh?!
we kind of knew the vicinity, but when we drove out to the super sketchy neighborhood, we didn't even think we were near the water. we drove around a few times, saw a few drug deals, and searched online. we were looking at the aerial picture and we were right next to the baseball diamond, but could not figure out how to get into the marina!
we finally realized there was a sketchy gate'ish thing we could go through and bam, we were in this awful, awful, dirty, dirty "marina."
we left the "marina," - we'd read online about a mean dog - and decided to go the "beach route."
we hopped rock to rock through this mud and grossness
it was seriously so dirty and such a precarious situation! shelly stayed closest to the car, laura ventured closest to the ship, and i kind of hovered between the two.
it was already dark, so we were using the flashlights on our phones and the flash on the camera.
have i mentioned how sketchy the neighborhood was? the whole thing was not our best decision, but we had to try!
we could see the mast's, but just couldn't get to it! so frustrating!
here's what shelly wrote about our experience:
"we had to trudge through mud in the dark, in a scary neighborhood to get a picture of the ship masts. we also drove on a private road in the grossest marina, dark and scary."
see?
i'm not exaggerating.
hopefully someday barnegat lightship will be returned to it's glory and get out of that dirty mud.
and when it does, we'll be there.
No comments:
Post a Comment