Rutgers University Outdoors Club

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About Sedge Island

Sedge Lodge in Barnegat Bay, NJ
(NJ Fish and Wildlife)

Sedge Island is one of the highlights of the fall semester and maybe even the entire school year at RUOC. It is a small, NJ State Parks-administered ecology teaching center located on an island in Barnegat Bay. Besides being in some of the last pristine salt-marsh in New Jersey, Sedge is also an example of a completely off-grid complex. Electricity is generated by solar power, wastes are fed into a organic composting system, and the refrigerators and stoves run off natural gas shipped in by boat.

Some of the things that I (Andy) personally remember most about my last visit to Sedge were seeing the bioluminescent jellyfish (actually, the algae the the jellyfish is bioluminestent) and clamming in the muck outside the Sedge lodge and then eating the fresh clams for dinner (they were delicious!).
But also high on my personal list was kayaking in the salt marshes and hanging out on the beach before it gets to be too cold out.

For more information on what you can expect, check out the NJ Fish and Wildlife website for Sedge.

Logistics

We'll drive down to Sedge on Friday after classes, park our cars and load up all of us and our gear on a pontoon boat for a short ride out to the island. We'll spend Saturday exploring the salt marshes around Sedge in kayaks and learning from a professional guide about the ecology of this very interesting ecosystem. When we return for dinner, we'll maybe do some clamming or fishing, bird-watching, swimming, or just hang out. We'll leave Sunday morning and be back at Rutgers by Sunday afternoon.

Sedge Island Sunset (RUOC 2004)

Check out some of the pictures taken by previous RUOCers to Sedge in the photo gallery here and here.

Cost

$50 per person.

This includes everything (food, transportation, lodging, and the nature guide on Saturday). You might want to bring a few dollars for a snack if we stop at QuikChek or Wawa on the way. Unfortunately, this is more expensive than previous years due to higher NJ State Park fees and lower funding from Rutgers.

Contacts

and are the trip leaders for this trip.