80th street beach, Harvey Cedars, NJ

As a boy the white sand beaches of Harvey Cedars were a world of pure freedom and joy.    The first order of business upon arriving at the shore at the beginning of summer was to take active measures to toughen one's feet.   On the walk up to 80th street beach there would be patches of soft asphalt, hot from the sun.  You would learn to search these spots out as the gooey surface was a relief from the biting pavement.   By the time July rolled around our feet would be leathery and calloused enough to run across the blazingly hot white sand and catapult into the cool, blue-green water.

      You could tell the "tourists"  from the regulars on 80th street pretty easily.   If someone wore a watch or shoes onto the beach they were clearly day trippers. Likewise, children my age who were wearing bathing suits instead of regulation cut-off jeans were unlikely to be around for more than a weekend.  These strange people would go to the beach with towels and put on sunblock!  

     Adults seemed not to understand the beach at all.  They would come to the beach with a convoy of gear:  beach chairs (?!), umbrellas, coolers filled with contraband beverages, books, cigarettes and everything necessary to remain stationary for the day. 

    For children being stationary was something to be avoided.  The beach offered almost complete freedom.  We would run along the edge of waves surging along the beach, side by side with the sandpipers.   We would have epic battles with kites we bought at "The Ship's Wheel" for a dollar.   When the ice cream man would ring his bells we would launch a full scale lobbying effort on Mom for enough change to get a creamsicle.  Once in a while Mom would indulge us and during the brisk sprint across the hot white sand we were grateful for the investment we had made in toughening up our feet.


The author, Philip Stephano, is a social media marketing strategist in Bucks County,  PA.  He is passionate about helping local and regional business around the country to use social media as an effective tool to find local prospects and customers. To learn more about Stephano go to http://about.me/philipstephano

Tacking into Kinsey Cove under sail

Many of you who have seen me tack "Misterioso" into Kinsey Cove powered only by wind may wonder, "how do you do it?"  The answer goes back 40 plus years.  I learned how to sail on a small scow-shaped boat called a "Butterfly".   A little bit more high tech than a Sunfish and quite a bit smaller and simpler than a Lightning, the Butterfly was, for me, pure freedom.

I learned how to sail the Butterfly on the cove, maneuvering in and out among pilings.   The predominant wind here in the summer is southwest.  This presented no problem in getting out of the cove to the Barnegat Bay.  From there I would often spend all day "discovering" all the hidden places of the bay.

West winds were the worst.  They brought greenhead flies, which were easy enough to kill, but unfortunately only after they were already biting you.   West winds also would choke the entrance to Kinsey Cove with thick mats of eelgrass.   It was impossible to sail through the eelgrass so I would pull myself back into the cove using the bulkheads as leverage or I would paddle.  To this day the west wind evokes feelings of restlessness and irritability in me.

In the southwest wind the channel was clear back into the cove but it was dead upwind.   The wind would careen through the channel bouncing off of the houses and often came from two directions at the same time.  As a result I learned to zone out my conscious mind, forgetting what direction the wind was "supposed" to be coming from and FEELING the zephyrs on the fine hairs of my cheeks, my ears, or the back of my neck.   You learned to squeeze as much momentum as possible from every favorable puff.   You also learned to use every inch of the channel,  waiting until the last inch before tacking in a game of chicken with docks and bulkheads.   Finally you learned NOT to try to do this on a Sunday in summer, on the 4th of July, or any other day when the channel was full of other boaters.   Nothing kills momentum like yielding to powerboat whose skipper is yelling at you to get out of his way. LOL

Translating this skill set into sailing almost thirty feet of yacht up the narrow channel of the cove presented no particular problem.   I was aided by the fact that "Misterioso" carries momentum extremely well and corners on a dime.  The one thing I have to pay attention to is  the aft end which seems to trail languidly according to its own sense of time and space.

The author, Philip Stephano, is owner of PrimalTweet a social media marketing company in Bucks County,  PA.  He is passionate about helping local and regional business around the country to use social media as an effective tool to find local prospects and customers. To learn more about Stephano go to http://about.me/philipstephano