The island is long but very thin. Walking from the bay side to the ocean side takes a few minutes; walking from end to end takes a few hours. Most visitors discover, sometimes against their habits, that the right way to be here is on foot. The Promenade itself stretches from 29th Street to 57th Street along the beach, and a walk along it during a summer evening passes through the entire population center - shoppers, ice-cream eaters, kids on rented bikes, the occasional fishing party returning from a day on the surf. Bikes and roller skates are allowed on the Promenade from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekdays and from 5 a.m. to noon on weekends, which is a small civic rule that nicely separates pedestrian time from wheeled time.

The geography of Ludlam Island produces unusually good fishing. The Townsend's Inlet bridge at the southern end of the island is a particularly reliable spot at the tide change, where bluefish, striped bass, and weakfish move through with the moving water. Surf fishing from the beach is permitted on specific stretches. Crabbing from the back-bay docks is a generational activity in Sea Isle - kids learn it from their parents, who learned it from theirs. The bait shops along Landis Avenue and on JFK Boulevard will tell you what is running, where to find it, and what they prefer for bait. The biggest hot spots stay busy with locals from before dawn into late morning. Kayaking is permitted in the bay anywhere, and in the ocean only on designated beaches.

Every February for more than two decades, around ten thousand people gather on the beach to run into the Atlantic Ocean wearing swimsuits, costumes, or some combination of both. The Sea Isle City Polar Bear Plunge has grown into one of the largest events on the Jersey Shore calendar. The water in February sits in the low forties. The plungers stay in for seconds, minutes if they are stubborn, and then run for the warm bars along JFK Boulevard. There is a costume contest. There are themed groups. There is a perpetual sense, watching the costumed runners hit the surf, that the line between civic event and shared mass dare is appropriately thin. The Polar Bear Plunge has become the off-season event that defines the town nearly as much as summer does.

The Italian community that built Fish Alley also built the town's restaurant culture. Park Road, just inland from the back bay, runs through the cluster of Italian restaurants that anchor Sea Isle City's dinner scene - Andrea Trattoria, Basilico's, and a generation of others that have come and gone. The cuisine is Italian-American Jersey Shore at its purest, which is to say red gravy, fresh seafood from the fleet, hand-rolled mozzarella, pizza that local kids will defend by name. Uncle Oogie's on Landis Avenue runs the most argued-about pizza in town. The Oar House on JFK at Park Avenue, in Fish Alley itself, hosts live bands all summer and watches the boats come in. The food is the surviving evidence of the immigrant fishing families who made Sea Isle City what it became.

Sea Isle City has worked hard at extending its season. The annual Harborfest in autumn brings out seafood vendors, craft tables, a beer garden, and a clam-eating contest - all of which lean into the working-fishery character that the town is built on. The Sea Isle City Historical Museum, which charges no admission, tells the longer story of the Landis founding, the Ash Wednesday Storm, the Italian immigration, the Promenade's evolution. The free guided beachcombing tours - one dollar for adults, one hour, walking the beach with someone who can name what washes up - are quietly one of the better activities anywhere on the shore. The town empties in winter. It does not entirely close. The bars and a handful of restaurants keep the lights on year-round, and the Plunge crowds make February the strangest, briefest second peak of the year.