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First time seeing at the beach

njtiger24 aquariums

Officer Emeritus
Article Contributor
im sure this will sound odd but I am not much of a beach person. Just never really enjoyed it so I didn’t go much even though being 15/20mins from LBI. Don’t get me wrong I normally go about once a month or so. Mostly later in the day. Tonight we took the girls and they are having fun in the water. The wife goes down and joins them. She comes back up and says ‘there either people swimming under the water or there fish swimming around us. Now my wife wear glasses but she had them off to go in the water. I chopped it up to her not seeing well. I was thinking seaweed or other objects. Looking at the water and I see this ‘fin’. I first think ‘sand shark’? I look closer and nope not a sand shark but a ray flapping. Start looking closer and saw like 4 or 5 rays swimming around having fun in the waves. These rays were like knee/waste deep water so they were pretty close. I took some video with my iPhone and hope to upload it later.

Now don’t get me wrong I know there fish and sharks in the ocean. It was just cool to see wild rays up that close.
 

DangerDave

NJRC Member
We’ve been at the beach for the last few days James, rays everywhere. Really cool to watch them in the waves on ibsp. Gavin’s girlfriend didn’t think they were so cool when one swam into her (hehehe) yesterday. We’re about to head to the sandbar outside our inlet, somethings always chasing bait around that area in numbers, I’m sure it’ll be cool to watch.

You can see schools of cow nose rays at the end of 7 bridges this time of year. They can get big too!
 
Very large pods of very large rays can be observed a tad farther out off the shoreline. If you pay attention and watch closely, you will see them as their fins emerge between the waves. From a distance, they look like porpoises or sharks schooling down the coast. I saw a lot last summer off Island Beach State Park.

As a former Lifeguard Instructor and "Jaws" enthusiast who likes to know what's in the water around me (whether it's Barracuda, American Sturgeon or Snapping Turtles) , I follow this rule of thumb in the water:
"If you can't see your feet,
you're in too deep!" :)


Sent using Tapatalk from my shoephone while inside the cone of silence.
 
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