The web site discoverdelawarebay.org includes a description of Money Island. We suggested this update that includes a few facts about the working waterfront community:
Money Island was once a robust salt hay farming outpost at the juncture of the Delaware Bay and Nantuxent Creek. Now, all that remains are a few houses, a marina and the docks where the days oyster catch for most of the bay is landed. In fact, most of NJ’s Delaware Bay oyster catch is landed here. Commercial crabbing
, conch, eel, bunker and soft shell crab operations contribute to make Money Island an important if obscure cog in the local commercial fishing economy. Total annual seafood catch is estimated at $28 million per year making Money Island the second most important seafood landing port in South Jersey. Money Island is the base of several environmental restoration projects in partnership with The Nature Conservancy, BaySave, Rutgers University and the Partnership for the Delaware Estuary.
The village also has much to offer the casual visitor or day-tripper. Recreational fishing is hot across all seasons; the marina maintains floating fishing docks open to the public daily. Enjoy the panoramic view from a shaded table on the large waterfront deck and check out the soft shell crab operations in season. The diversity of wildlife is startling.
The roughly 40 houses wind from the Bayfront along the mouth of the fast moving Nantuxent Creek and then follow its eastern bank as it winds back through acre after acre of marsh and farm fields dotted with islands of cedars and flanked by pine forests.
Eagles nest up the creek and can be seen daily moving from bank to bank. Great Horned Owls are known to call from the clumps of trees in the creek side back to the cedar islands on the outskirts of town.”
I spent all my summers growing up here with my grandparents through the 60’s and early 70’s…the house was swept away with Hurricane Gloria in 1985. Seeing this is so nostalgic for me–I’m 58 now! For years I’ve wanted to go down to see the island and how it’s changed. I remember my Pop and my Dad taking me fishing in the little motor boats and we also fished off our front porch on the bay. We’d eat fresh crabs and my Pop would make eel and onions. We had alot of erosion and Pop was always trying to figure out ways of beating the tides coming up…our driveway was always turning to mud. The house was on stilts and when the tide would come up at night the water would come all the way up and the island would be under water completely! We’d have to park our cars far away down the road. I remember the Winkles and the Snyders, our neighbors. I was always jealous of Donna Snyder who had her own little speed boat with her name on it!