Tucker's Island Lighthouse

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New Jersey Bike Map lists 15 different lighthouses in New Jersey. I have visited at least 10 of them during my bike rides but there are still a few I haven't seen.

On Saturday, during a trip with my wife, I visited one I haven't been to yet, The Tucker's Island Lighthouse. It's on Route 9 in Tuckerton which is about 30 miles north of Atlantic City. Click here for a picture of the lighthouse.

The actual lighthouse is more house than light. If somebody hadn't told me is was a lighthouse I won't have known it. It also seem to be a strange place for a lighthouse because its at least two miles from the ocean. The truth is that the Tucker's Island Lighthouse that is on Route 9 is a recreation of the original one which was actually located 6 miles east of the current one. The original one was destroyed, in 1927, by erosion as the sea slowly took the island back piece by piece.

Tucker's Island no longer exists today and the area that is now Tuckerton is mainly low lying wetlands bordering the ocean. There is a lot of marinas around here and its suppose to be a good place for fishing, clamming and crabbing.

After the visit to the lighthouse we took a ride to the ocean just to look around. There wasn't much to see especially since it's the off season but the dock where we parked had a nice view of the ocean and there were a lot of seagulls. Seagulls are basically pigeons that live by the ocean and aren't the prettiest of birds but if you get them in the right setting it makes a good picture. I had my camera with me so I took a lot of pictures and ended up with a few good ones.

On our way back home we stopped at Smithville which is about 10 miles south of Tuckerton. I rode past Smithville last year as part of my Basto River Cruise. This time I got a chance to walk around Smithville and had a really good lunch at the Smithville inn. There is a small lake that the village surrounds. It the summer the lake is filled with people in paddle boats but in the winter it was empty except for a few very strange ducks. These ducks move there necks as they paddle in a really strange way. There is no way to describe it so take a look at the video here.