Navesink Twin Lights in Highlands, NJ & Exploring The Beach Town of Sea Bright, NJ

Last weekend, my friends and I embarked on a day trip to a place not too far from us. Located in Highlands, NJ is a lighthouse that is split into two. Navesink Twin Lights has a non-operational lighthouse that also connects to a small museum. If you’ve been to New Jersey or have heard about it, you’ve probably also heard of Sandy Hook Bay, a bay that connects from Monmouth County to lower New York and are split by the land of Sandy Hook. The Twin Lights, on Navesink Highlands, overlooks Sandy Hook Bay and on a clear day, you can sometimes spot New York City across from it. Located on top of a hill 200 ft above land, we entered to the Navesink Twin Lights.

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One of the lighthouses, the original lighthouse, was built in 1828 and the other lighthouse built after was built in 1862. They were also the first electrically powered lighthouse in the country. In 1935, the U.S. Army was field testing a radar, which was called Mystery Ray then, here and the experiments with this radar helped allies win WWII and helped jetliners safely fly and share the sky together. In retrospect, the lighthouse has a rich history that you get to read about and witness through their collected artifacts in the museum before the Civil War time and after.

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A huge power fan on display

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Beautiful China that were on a ship called The Aurora from 1827 were found by divers (described in the picture below)

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A Patriotic Sash that was made around 1880
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A postcard from 1908 for Memorial Day
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A book on Navy Adventure from 1897

We entered into a different part of the building, which is still a part of the museum.

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Revolutionary War artifacts like a ball from a cannon
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Actual Prohibition bottles from the Prohibition time when the manufacturing and sale of alcohol was illegal in the United States
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Shown here is a sign from the Water Witch Train Station and information on the Highlands Gold Rush, where a discovery of gold coins on the Highlands beach was found and it was thought to have been the British Army’s during their evacuation after the Battle of Monmouth
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Items that were found from a tavern long ago with utensils, plates, pots, bones from cows (the type of meat that was eaten), cigarettes, and more
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A painting of the depiction of what the tavern might’ve looked like in correlation to the found items
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A donated painting of Highlands with the Navesink Twin Lights shown
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Early 1900’s fishing sinkers that were recovered by divers from the river nearby, Shrewsbury River
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This was a trophy that was awarded to Gertrude Ederle, an Olympic Champion and an American competitive swimmer (see more information on the photo below)
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She swam 21 miles from New York City to Sandy Hook and a year later, she became the first woman to swim across the English Channel; she practiced her swimming in the Sandy Hook Bay prior
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Pictures of Gertrude Ederle and her accomplishments
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A flag of the Highlands for their 50th anniversary celebration

After walking around the museum, we walked outside of the Twin Lights to enjoy a beautiful view of the lighthouse overlooking the bay on the hill.

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We wanted to then go out to eat somewhere for dinner so we drove across the bridge that you see on the picture above and one of the food places we chose to go to was located in Sea Bright, a beach town in New Jersey.

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The beach town reminded us remarkably of Cape May and other beach towns we have came across in the past. It was honestly a nice and quiet town. We found this bench that was designed and entirely painted to look like a mini house. It even had see-through windows. Super adorable and talented!

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That’s me!

We decided to eat at a famous burrito chain in New Jersey called Bubbakoo’s Burritos because everywhere we tried to find to eat, it was really pricey due to the high volume of seafood restaurants and those with oceanfront views.

We all opted for the taco salad bowl and this tasty soda called Stubborn — I got the Lemon Berry Acai! Yum!

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And to end the day, we checked out the beach (if you’re going to visit a beach town, you have to at least check out the beach even if you don’t plan to take a dip!). It was mesmerizing to witness since you can see the reflection of the cotton candy colored skies to the lagoon that was in front of us.

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A polaroid of my friends and I

 


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