Last Updated on March 2, 2020 by Christopher G Mendla

This picture is at the end of 17th Street in North Beach Haven. I took it but I don’t remember the exact year. Judging from the houses in the background it was probably in the 1990’s.

The bay had frozen over pretty hard. My Dad and I were slightly crazy walking on the ice. Where we are standing is normally about 4-5′ deep.

Some people were driving cars on the ice. Unfortunately for them, when they fell trough they were handed steep fines for water pollution from the gas and oil in the car plus the cost of removing it from the bay. “Hold my beer and watch THIS!!”

Many of the homes in the 1990’s were still summer cottages. Our house was a Cape Cod that really wasn’t meant for winter use. My dad and I rigged a small six gallon electric water heater. We set the plumbing up so that we could just turn on the sink with hot and cold water. We could flush the toilet with a five gallon bucket from the sink. As you can see, there were no crowds on the island in the winter at that time.

More recently, the bay froze in 2018.