Hey Tom,

... after 1900 on Thursday would have been getting onto pretty much full-on darkness. The difference between approaching from the sea buoy, and cutting the jetty closer in could have made a all the difference between snatching the last fading light off to the west, end entering in more complete darkness... Also, we’ve had a fair amount of fog coming and going along the coast the past week, the visibility in the pic the following morning doesn’t look so hot… Even the latest and greatest 3-D electronic cartography would be of minimal help at Barnegat, even with local knowledge, entering at night in the fog would be very risky… I’d want to get inside really badly to make the attempt in heavy fog at night, in anything less than absolutely benign conditions… For a transient boater without local knowledge, it would be just plain crazy - but, as we continue to see with incidents like that of the loss of the RULE 62 last fall in the Bahamas, the sort of decision that modern electronic aids to navigation seem to "embolden" sailors into making...

The submerged jetty on the north side is not particularly well-defined on most charts, and would have been well beneath the surface at the stage of the tide that night (about mid-tide, on the flood)… I think the lighted tower at the end of the visible jetty sometimes further lulls some boaters into thinking that marks the outermost hazard, and this boat likely passed by Manasquan Inlet that afternoon, where it is apparent that is certainly the case (With a swell running, or the tide on the ebb, locals often prefer to cutting around the rocks at Manasquan as closely as you dare, then making a quick sharp turn in).. Such an approach will definitely NOT work at Barnegat, in anything other than a small center console fishing boat, or anything else of similarly shallow draft… I routinely cut a LOT of corners up and down the East coast, and guys who fish around those rocks insist there is a passage for a deeper draft sailboat through there, but… maybe in my next life, I’ll have the nerve to give it a try… But, not in this life, that's one corner I don't have the nerve to cut closer than about the second pair of fairway buoys in from the sea buoy...

Also, as you're approaching the jetties, and once in between them, the channel really favors the starboard/NE side... There's usually a green flasher somewhat inside the end of the jetty, but it usually is placed about 2/3 of the way across from port to starboard, and then you run extremely close to the rocks the rest of the way in - much closer to the rocks than the red line in the pic below indicates, actually... The weird wave action and potential for getting broached by a breaking sea is greatest right near the end of the jetty - so even if the guy really knew where he was, in the conditions Larry reported on thursday night, it's not hard to imagine the possibility of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, going into a broach, and surfing right into the rocks...

Older, submerged jetties pose a similar risk at several inlets along the East coast – Ocean City, MD, Winyah Bay Entrance, Charleston, Savannah River, and St Mary’s Entrance, to name the most obvious… Absolutely boggles the mind that their furthest seaward projections are not marked more conspicuously, especially by lighted aids at night… The end of the north jetty at St Mary’s is the only one that comes to mind, that has a lighted buoy positioned near the end of the jetty… The submerged rocks at Barnegat are not even marked with true nav aids, but rather usually small unlit buoys similar to the type that usually mark “No Wake Zones”, or similar…

After the loss of the s/v MORNING DEW and the death of the 4 aboard after hitting the jetty at Charleston back in the 90’s, I thought for sure something would FINALLY be done about marking the end of the jetties that become awash at high tide with a light of a more distinguishing characteristic than the line of nav aids that define the entrance channel – something like a yellow strobe, or similar… One would think in the wake of a $35 million lawsuit brought against the CG in the wake of that incident, and the litany of recommendations made by the NTSB investigation, at least some attention might have been given to better identifying submerged jetties to mariners, but apparently not…

Absolutely heartbreaking, the loss of a beauty like ODE TO JOY so shortly after such an effort given to her restoration… Just one more reminder, bad things can happen entering small boat inlets/harbors at night…