Wetsuit weekend horror Part 1
Friday night Ilona and I left the apartment with my extra big backpack (my "let's travel around Europe for 3 months" backpack) and two small bags, two bicycles, two challah breads and some frozen kosher chicken. It was 6:45pm on the corner of 93rd and Broadway and we were aiming for a 7:08pm train out of NJ Transit Penn Station. The race began.
After navigating the turnstiles, the subway, Ilona's injured knee (which refused to bend), rush hour pedestrian traffic underground New York and a broken escalator to the train platform, we actually made it in time. As per the rules of bike travel on trains, we had planned to miss the peak hours of 4 - 7 pm, and still make it to Bradley Beach before dark. Alas, our plans were waylaid. The conductor decided to use his discretion and NOT let us on the train. His somewhat illogical excuse was that this express train will get crowded in two stops time (he apparently had a crystal ball). It was a miserable weekend and not that many people were leaving the city to go to their beach houses. But, we were rejected and had to wait for a local train that got us to our destination 2 hours later than planned.
Luckily Simon came and met us at the train station and collected our bags so we could ride our lightless bikes to his beach house. He followed behind slowly, acting as our headlights. A BBQ dinner was on the table waiting for us when we arrived (except for the kosher chicken which was quickly cooked up on the still hot bbq.)
Saturday morning sleep-in. First time in more than three months. Hooray! French toast breakfast was followed by the hysterical event of Ilona and Karen putting on our brand new wetsuits for the first time. Simon and Steve read the instructions and watched and laughed with us. A couple of broken nails, flattened chests and blue extremeties later, we managed to walk down to the beach, which was deserted. I saw the lifeguard in a car driving on the beach, so I hailed him over and asked if it was safe for us to go in the rough, choppy water. He asked us if we were strong swimmers! Well, we have been training for three months! He said he'd send a lifeguard down to watch us. We assigned signals between us and Steve and Simon and hopped our way into the water. We planned to make our way past the breakers, the white tops, the smashing waves - whatever you want to call them, and then try to swim with the current between two rock piers (jetty). Well, the water was so rough. The waves kept dumping us and I freaked out somewhat and was feeling very panicked. Even with Ilona holding my hand, my instinct told me it was not a good idea to keep walking out to sea, wetsuit and all, in such a wild environment. So we turned back. As the two of us, looking like cone-heads with bright fluorescent swim caps (I have now bought a trendy black lycra one), got back to shore, we noticed 5, yes five, lifeguards standing on the beach watching us. Oh how humiliating! The boss had gotten them out of bed in order to come and watch us foolishly NOT do our first open water swim.
They suggested we try the bay beach, the inlet not far away. We walked back to the beach house and got in Simon's lovely BMW with our wet wetsuits and ended up at Shark Fin River (aptly named for my fear level at this stage!). We prepared ourselves and started to walk into the water only to have our feet sink into knee-deep sludge, slime and oil slick. Yick! Echhh! Oiy! It was horrible. So I just jumped as far as I could and started swimming. My hand hit the bottom and my fingernails filled with black yuckky stuff. I was not a happy chappy.
We swam as far as my ick-tolerance would allow (half way) and then we turned back. Steve and Simon were suprised we gave up, and genuinely encouraged us to go back in and try again. So for the second time, I repeated that horrible entry into the water and we swam three quarters of the way to our intended buoy destination. Seagulls squwaked over my head and I had a sudden panic that one was going to swoop down and pick me up out of the water, thinking I was fish food. It was a combination between The Birds and Finding Nemo. My panic level didnt really allow me to do much other than doggie paddle, and I'd swallowed so much water that I was mostly floating anyway, so we turned back for the second and final time. We got out and I wanted to vomit, but continuous spitting seemed sufficient. Note: there was even a dead fish skeleton on the banks of the water (shiver and shudder as I think about it). Stripped out of the wetsuits and wiped off blobs of oil sludge before getting back in the car and home for a shower and a bath.
In the afternoon, Ilona and I got on our bikes and went for a bike ride in the grey, drizzly weather. Simon and Steve gave us directions to head North, which meant some riding on the Main Road in order to get on to the beach road north. Well, it was a little too busy for us. Too much traffic, so we took the side streets and ended up where we were intending to avoid - Asbury Park. This town is famous for its Rock and Roll history, most notably Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi and the club called The Stone Pony (where I actually went last year in the Summer and saw Billy Idol perform live on stage - it was great!). While we were riding through this area that seemed dodgy, we saw the half demolished Palace building.
(picture to be uploaded here)
It just looked like a half demolished building with no specific significance, until I did some research and discovered that this place was quite a momument in the heady days of the 60's, 70's and 80's music scene of North Eastern USA.
"Back in the 80s, there was a Rock and Roll Museum housed in the Palace Amusements building in Asbury Park. The museum contained lots of great music-related stuff from artists like Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, Bon Jovi, Billy Chinnock and many more. During the period of time when it was open thousands of people from all across the world stopped by to learn about the local music history. Unfortunately the museum was forced to close when the Palace stopped operately and Asbury Park has been without a museum geared towards its music history ever since."
Wanna see more? Check out this site to explore more of the Asbury Park music scene and general history. Very interesting. http://www.asburymusic.com/virtualtour.html
(insert another picture here too) So I've include a picture of the boardwalk which we rode along illegally for some way. The sky was even grayer and it was drizzling.
After navigating the turnstiles, the subway, Ilona's injured knee (which refused to bend), rush hour pedestrian traffic underground New York and a broken escalator to the train platform, we actually made it in time. As per the rules of bike travel on trains, we had planned to miss the peak hours of 4 - 7 pm, and still make it to Bradley Beach before dark. Alas, our plans were waylaid. The conductor decided to use his discretion and NOT let us on the train. His somewhat illogical excuse was that this express train will get crowded in two stops time (he apparently had a crystal ball). It was a miserable weekend and not that many people were leaving the city to go to their beach houses. But, we were rejected and had to wait for a local train that got us to our destination 2 hours later than planned.
Luckily Simon came and met us at the train station and collected our bags so we could ride our lightless bikes to his beach house. He followed behind slowly, acting as our headlights. A BBQ dinner was on the table waiting for us when we arrived (except for the kosher chicken which was quickly cooked up on the still hot bbq.)
Saturday morning sleep-in. First time in more than three months. Hooray! French toast breakfast was followed by the hysterical event of Ilona and Karen putting on our brand new wetsuits for the first time. Simon and Steve read the instructions and watched and laughed with us. A couple of broken nails, flattened chests and blue extremeties later, we managed to walk down to the beach, which was deserted. I saw the lifeguard in a car driving on the beach, so I hailed him over and asked if it was safe for us to go in the rough, choppy water. He asked us if we were strong swimmers! Well, we have been training for three months! He said he'd send a lifeguard down to watch us. We assigned signals between us and Steve and Simon and hopped our way into the water. We planned to make our way past the breakers, the white tops, the smashing waves - whatever you want to call them, and then try to swim with the current between two rock piers (jetty). Well, the water was so rough. The waves kept dumping us and I freaked out somewhat and was feeling very panicked. Even with Ilona holding my hand, my instinct told me it was not a good idea to keep walking out to sea, wetsuit and all, in such a wild environment. So we turned back. As the two of us, looking like cone-heads with bright fluorescent swim caps (I have now bought a trendy black lycra one), got back to shore, we noticed 5, yes five, lifeguards standing on the beach watching us. Oh how humiliating! The boss had gotten them out of bed in order to come and watch us foolishly NOT do our first open water swim.
They suggested we try the bay beach, the inlet not far away. We walked back to the beach house and got in Simon's lovely BMW with our wet wetsuits and ended up at Shark Fin River (aptly named for my fear level at this stage!). We prepared ourselves and started to walk into the water only to have our feet sink into knee-deep sludge, slime and oil slick. Yick! Echhh! Oiy! It was horrible. So I just jumped as far as I could and started swimming. My hand hit the bottom and my fingernails filled with black yuckky stuff. I was not a happy chappy.
We swam as far as my ick-tolerance would allow (half way) and then we turned back. Steve and Simon were suprised we gave up, and genuinely encouraged us to go back in and try again. So for the second time, I repeated that horrible entry into the water and we swam three quarters of the way to our intended buoy destination. Seagulls squwaked over my head and I had a sudden panic that one was going to swoop down and pick me up out of the water, thinking I was fish food. It was a combination between The Birds and Finding Nemo. My panic level didnt really allow me to do much other than doggie paddle, and I'd swallowed so much water that I was mostly floating anyway, so we turned back for the second and final time. We got out and I wanted to vomit, but continuous spitting seemed sufficient. Note: there was even a dead fish skeleton on the banks of the water (shiver and shudder as I think about it). Stripped out of the wetsuits and wiped off blobs of oil sludge before getting back in the car and home for a shower and a bath.
In the afternoon, Ilona and I got on our bikes and went for a bike ride in the grey, drizzly weather. Simon and Steve gave us directions to head North, which meant some riding on the Main Road in order to get on to the beach road north. Well, it was a little too busy for us. Too much traffic, so we took the side streets and ended up where we were intending to avoid - Asbury Park. This town is famous for its Rock and Roll history, most notably Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi and the club called The Stone Pony (where I actually went last year in the Summer and saw Billy Idol perform live on stage - it was great!). While we were riding through this area that seemed dodgy, we saw the half demolished Palace building.
(picture to be uploaded here)
It just looked like a half demolished building with no specific significance, until I did some research and discovered that this place was quite a momument in the heady days of the 60's, 70's and 80's music scene of North Eastern USA.
"Back in the 80s, there was a Rock and Roll Museum housed in the Palace Amusements building in Asbury Park. The museum contained lots of great music-related stuff from artists like Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, Bon Jovi, Billy Chinnock and many more. During the period of time when it was open thousands of people from all across the world stopped by to learn about the local music history. Unfortunately the museum was forced to close when the Palace stopped operately and Asbury Park has been without a museum geared towards its music history ever since."
Wanna see more? Check out this site to explore more of the Asbury Park music scene and general history. Very interesting. http://www.asburymusic.com/virtualtour.html
(insert another picture here too) So I've include a picture of the boardwalk which we rode along illegally for some way. The sky was even grayer and it was drizzling.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home