New Jersey Weird and Wonderful

By Johna Till Johnson
Photos by Vladimir Brezina

This trip dates from last fall, but took us this long to post in part because we wanted to include a lot of detail to guide paddlers who might want to go to these places, which are very accessible to NYC paddlers of all skill levels. 

So each photo is numbered, and the third image down is a map showing where each photo was taken, so you can associate the photo with the location. The  body of the post includes only a small selection of the photos; for the rest, see the slideshow at the bottom.

And don’t miss the special bonus: A link to a GoPro video from the trip, at the very end of the post!

47. Beautiful day at the Sims Scrap Metal Yard

The currents weren’t really right for any of our usual trips, ebbing most of the day, and turning back to flood around 4:30 PM. So a long trip to points south would mean returning close to midnight, which neither of us wanted to do.

But it was an effervescent fall day, with a gusty breeze, blue skies, and sunlight sparkling over the waves. We wanted to do something a little out of the ordinary, for us, at least.

“Why not visit Port Liberté, and meander down the Jersey side of the harbor?” Vlad suggested.

15. Port Liberté

What a splendid idea! Port Liberté is one of the many weird and wonderful things on the New Jersey side. Vlad calls it “the would-be Venice of New Jersey,” and it truly is: According to Wikipedia, it was designed in the 1980s as a waterfront community patterned after a similar one in Saint-Tropez, France, complete with canals lined with docks and waterfront walkways.

The idea is, to my mind at least, flawless: Imagine living right on the waterfront, with your own personal dock, just a few minutes by ferry or private boat from Manhattan! Unfortunately, though, the market crash of the late 80s ended the development plans, and what remains, though beautiful, is just a wistful indication of what might have been.

We’d last been to Port Liberté several years ago—maybe as far back as 2011. So it was time for another look. Then we’d continue down the Jersey side of the harbor, our moods and the currents permitting, until it was time to turn back. Come to think of it, despite our many years of paddling in the harbor, neither Vlad nor I had ever really properly explored all the ins and outs of the Jersey side.

The places we visited. The numbers show the locations of the photos in the gallery at the end of this post and in the text. The three rectangles show the areas expanded in three more detailed maps below. Click on any map or photo to enlarge it.

6. The Manhattan skyline is best appreciated from New Jersey…

So we set off on this blue, sunny, sparkly day. The trip down the Hudson and across to the Jersey side was bouncy but uneventful. Keeping an eagle eye out for ferries, we wended our way around the outside of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty (photos 2-10).

10. At the Statue

Before long we were approaching Port Liberté (photo 11). We glided past the decrepit metal bulwark guarding the entrance at Caven Point (photo 12), gawking at the graceful, now-shuttered building on the point.

Port Liberté

And then we were there—among the canals and condos, which looked strangely abandoned on this beautiful fall Sunday. Sure, there were a few boats moored here and there, and a few teenagers on skateboards, but given the location, you’d have expected a bustling community.

18. Through the “streets” of Port Liberté

We circled around the island in the center, twice (photos 13-18). All too soon, though, we’d seen everything there was to be seen in Port Liberté.

Where next?

The only other water exit from Port Liberté, to the southwest, passes under a bridge with a large pipe crossing under it that blocks the channel—but not to kayaks, at low tide (photo 19). And we were in luck: the tide was low. So we scooted under the pipe, paddled past the Port Liberté ferry terminal, and found ourselves in a picturesque industrial embayment.

22. Industrial details

A number of tugboats were moored there, seeming to slumber in the early-afternoon sun. There were barges and scows, dredges, and all sorts of interesting industrial semi-ruins (photos 20-26).

27. Corpses…

We explored the embayment, watching a tug-and-barge go through its maneuvers, then paddled out of the embayment toward the open harbor. Suddenly, to our surprise, we came across barges heaped with fiberglass motorboats (photos 27, 28), some seemingly intact but some broken and overgrown with marine growth—presumably some of those that, even now several years later, are still being pulled out of the harbor in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. We realized that we had stumbled across the home of the Federal vessels that we often encounter in the harbor: the Army Corps of Engineers’ Driftmaster, which pulls such debris out of the harbor, the Hayward… (photos 29-32). So that’s where they all went during their time off!

30. Federal boats

Sims Scrap Metal Yard

We turned into the next deep embayment to the south, and caught sight of a… well, what the heck was it? (Photo 35)

From a distance it looked like a space station. Or maybe a giant metal Habitrail, with curving towers and tubes (photos 36-38, 48, 49). And the closer we got, the more mysterious it was. It was clearly industrial, with a system of trolleys and lifts. But what sort of industry?

35. What the heck is it?!

We couldn’t figure it out, so we had to look it up later at home. Turns out it’s a “scrap metal factory” that reprocesses scrap metal into usable metal. That whole point of land is occupied by the Sims Scrap Metal Yard. And for my fellow grammar nuts, please note the correct use of the word “complementary” in the following description of its services: “Complementary services offered by our scrap yard include stevedoring, barge loading, container loading, overseas container loading, rail car loading, bulk/container ship loading, truck loading and vessel loading.” Many people misspell “complimentary” as “complementary”, so I was chuckling at the concept of picking up some free stevedoring along with my delivery of scrap metal…

40. Dark holes are irresistible

We spent a long time looking and wondering at the scrap metal yard (photos 39-47). When we’d looked our fill, we paddled back out of the embayment and turned south. I was in the lead, as Vlad lagged behind to take pictures in what turned out to be the Weeks Marine shipyard (photos 56-72). As with the Federal vessels that we came across earlier, we’d always seen Weeks barges and construction equipment on our trips around the harbor, but never knew where they all came from!

63. Weeks Marine

Weeks Marine

My attention was caught by a forest of cranes engaged in the choreographed dance of loading and unloading shipping containers. I’m completely fascinated by shipping containers, as I’ve written about before, so I paddled to where I could get the best view. Then I stopped paddling and simply watched, transfixed.

Luckily it was close to slack, so I just bobbed up and down in the water. Off in the distance, I could see Vlad making his way unhurriedly towards me across the water, but for me time seemed stopped while I watched the graceful motions, the swoop and glide of the cranes, and the nearly magical rise and fall of the containers themselves. As it was downwind from me, the activity was almost perfectly soundless, adding to my sense of being suspended outside time.

In the foreground, I idly noticed some black and white cars drive slowly down the road. They stopped, then drove back more rapidly. A few figures got out. They were dressed in back, and seemed to be very interested in the waterfront, but I paid little attention.

After more than half an hour, Vlad paddled up. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

What?

“Bullhorns. Those are police. They were shouting something at us.” I hadn’t heard it, and was glad I hadn’t.

Just then a small boat appeared, moving at high speed, churning up a white bow wave, making right for us. Damn! It was a police boat. We were about to get busted… for suspiciously watching shipping operations. (The cranes were at Bayonne’s Military Ocean Terminal, which has a security zone inside it—which we were careful not to enter—but probably any small vessel loitering near is suspect these days…)

But the police boat continued past us without stopping. And shortly thereafter, the police on land got back into their cars and left. Presumably the marine police had advised the officers on land that we were just ordinary kayakers, nothing to see here.

74. At Robbins Reef Light

Now that we’d seen the scrap metal factory and the shipping terminal, what now? After we’d circled Robbins Reef Lighthouse (photos 73-75), Vlad suggested we continue on to the Bayonne Golf Course.

The um, what?

Yes, you read that right!

Apparently the powers that be—or developers, at least—had decided in years past that Bayonne, New Jersey, was the perfect location for what its marketing brochure calls “a club for the passionate golfer who enjoys the timeless joy of playing golf on a windswept links.”

Perfect, that is, if the passionate golfer also enjoys the “timeless joy” of watching industrial shipping and manufacturing, as well as stunning views of toxic wastelands. I’m not a golfer, so far be it from me to judge—in fact, we paddlers tend to appreciate these things.

76. Bayonne Golf Club ahead

So we padded toward the golf course, with its rolling green hills surmounted by a white lighthouse-like building and giant American flag, all backed by the slowly-descending sun (photo 76). We passed an interesting square of cordoned-off water (a wildlife preservation area, apparently). And after a few more minutes, we landed on a sandy, trash-strewn beach.

We rested, had a snack, and took care of the calls of Nature, hoping to stay out of sight of the golfers on the hills above us. “Now you can say you peed on the grounds of the Bayonne Golf Club,” Vlad said to me, amused.

83. The Manhattan skyline just before sunset

After a short while it was time to launch again for home. The current had turned in our favor, the sun was low on the horizon, and we headed towards the Statue of Liberty and, beyond it, Manhattan (photos 77-91). As we passed by the places we had visited that day, now bathed in the late-afternoon light, I was struck again by how weird New Jersey can be.

90. Dusk

And how utterly wonderful!

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Here are all the photos referred to in this post, and a few extra ones (click on any photo to start slideshow):

1. We prepare to launch from Pier 40… traffic awaits us out there!

2. We paddle across the Hudson and point our bows toward the Statue and points beyond

3. The Manhattan skyline is best appreciated from New Jersey

4. We pass the old Central Railroad Terminal of New Jersey

5. Traffic crossing!

6. The harbor is busy today!

7. We approach the Statue

8. The Statue is crowded on this beautiful fall Sunday

9. The classic view

10. Manhattan beyond

11, We approach Port Liberté

12. The entrance bulwark is rusting through

13. Into the canals…

14. … and under the bridge to the central island

15. You can probably tell the profession of the owner…

16. Fall colors

17. But the whole place is strangely deserted

18. We paddle through the “streets”…

19. … and under the obstructing pipe out of Port Liberté…

20. … into the adjacent industrial embayment

21. Vlad admiring (photo by Johna)

22. Industrial details 1

23. Industrial details 2

24. Time to paddle on (photo by Johna)

25. Against the sun

26. Rusty

27. Corpses…

28. … piled up

29. The Federal nest

30. Army Corps of Engineers

31. The Driftmaster…

32. … and the Hayward

33. We paddle out of that embayment

34. Cranes in the distance

35. …. and into the next embayment

36. Industrial apparition

37. What is it?

38. We try to guess

39. Wall of barges

40. Johna is curious

41. Giant tires ahead

42. Green reflections (photo by Johna)

43. Barge details

44. Dwarfed (photo by Johna)

45. Vlad poses (photo by Johna)

46. Ripples of sunlight

47. We paddle back out of the embayment…

48. … past the mysterious structure

49. We’ll look it up when we get home!

50. Rotting embankment…

51. … spilling its innards

52. The cranes are closer now

53. Through the remnants of an old pier

54. Wall of steel…

55. … with the shadows of old tires

56. We draw close to the cranes

57. Industrial details 3

58. We paddle through the gaps in the fleet of barges

59. Industrial details 4

60. The sun is bright in the crystalline fall sky

61. Hooks

62. Industrial details 5

63. Industrial tableau

64. Closer

65. And closer still

66. Cranes, today at rest

67. Industrial details 6

68. Yellow hook

69. Industrial details 7

70. Industrial details 8

71. Weeks Marine

72. Industrial details 9

73. We paddle on to Robbins Reef Light

74. Photo from the top of a wave

75. Manhattan in the distance

76. We approach the Bayonne Golf Club

77. Then back toward home

78. Red buoy

79. The Manhattan skyline ahead

80. We approach the Statue, going behind it this time

81. Back of the Statue

82. Manhattan glows ahead of us…

83. … just before sunset

84. Last of the sun

85. Cooler colors appear…

86. … as soon as the sun dips below the horizon

87. Late traffic in the Hudson

88. The colors change minute by minute

89. We paddle past the entrance to the Morris Canal before we start crossing the Hudson

90. Dusk

91. Last light

Even more photos are here. A GoPro video of the last part of our trip, our return to Manhattan, is here.