Boating, Fishing, and Travel Information for Avalon, Ocean Drive Bridge, NJ

Gasoline, diesel fuel, water, ice, berths, some marine supplies, and a 4-ton forklift are available at Avalon; hull and engine repairs can be done.

Townsends Inlet, 20 miles southwest of Absecon Inlet, is subject to considerable changes in position and depth, and is used principally by pleasure craft. Channel buoys are not charted, because they are shifted frequently to mark the best water. The depth over the bar is about 4 feet. Numerous wrecks and obstructions are in the approaches to the inlet from seaward.

Avalon, on the southwest side of the inlet, is separated from the waterway’s Ingram Thorofare by a wide marsh area. Townsends Inlet is a small resort on the northeast side of the inlet. A seasonal Coast Guard station is on the northeast side of the resort.

The highway bridge over Townsends Inlet has a bascule span with a clearance of 23 feet. The route of the New Jersey Intracoastal Waterway is just west of the bridge. In 1987, it is reported that a sandbar in a north-south direction across the east approach to the channel at the center of the drawspan causes hazardous conditions for mariners, especially during south winds and flood tidal currents that create a loss of steering and dangerous clockwise currents at the base of the bridge; extreme caution is advised in this area.

Cornell Harbor, a channel with a reported depth of 4.0 feet in the north half in 2000, leads southeastward through the marsh from Mile 96.8 to Avalon thence along the inner side of the resort.

Pennsylvania Harbor, 0.5-mile southwestward of Cornell Harbor, had a reported controlling depth of 2.7 feet (4.5 feet at midchannel) in 2000. Princeton Harbor, 0.2-mile southwestward of Pennsylvania Harbor had a reported controlling depth of 2.3 feet (deeper water is available with local knowledge) in 1999-2000. Both waterways lead to the Avalon waterfront. The fixed bridges over the Avalon channel at the inner ends of the two harbors restrict passage between them or to the southwest to an overhead clearance of 4 feet.