Barnegat Inlet is a smallinlet connecting theBarnegat Bay with theAtlantic Ocean inOcean County, New Jersey. It separatesIsland Beach State Park and theBarnegat Peninsula fromLong Beach Island. TheBarnegat Lighthouse sits at the northern end of Long Beach Island along the inlet.
The area surrounding the Barnegat Bay and Barnegat Inlet were described byHenry Hudson, in 1609, as "...a great lake of water, as we could judge it to be ... The mouth of the lake hath many shoals, and the sea breaketh on them as it is cast out of the mouth of it." The inlet was originally named in 1614 "Barendegat," or "Inlet of the Breakers," byDutch explorers of the coastline, referring to the waterway's turbulent channel.[1]
Historically the inlet has been important to commerce to the Barnegat Bay region, allowing ships to access centers of commerce likeToms River. More recently, shipwrecks have attracted scuba divers to the area.[2] The inlet is also a popular destination forbirdwatchers.[3]
The continued threat of storms such as theAsh Wednesday Storm of 1962 reinforced concerns about the stability of the shoreline along the inlet. The construction of the existingjetty in the 1990s added a significant amount of land to the town ofBarnegat Light, much of which was designated as parkland and now includes a bird sanctuary. The jetty has provided stabilization to the shoreline along the inlet, but requires frequentdredging.
39°46′00″N74°06′12″W / 39.76667°N 74.10333°W /39.76667; -74.10333
