In this photo from 2012, two women at the St. Mary by-the-Sea enjoy the deserted beach at the foot of the retreat house. (Star-Ledger file photo)

By Mark Di Ionno | NJ Advance Media

Let's get right to the point. For many people, the best boardwalks in New Jersey are those with no one on them. Those that look like December in the middle of summer.

Those where the squawks of the gulls can be differentiated from the wails of tired children, and where the crash of the waves isn't drowned out by the screams from the thrill rides.

Those where the ship lights on the distant horizon aren’t obliterated by the neon, blinking, swirling, electric assaults of the cornea, retina and iris.

Those where the scent of salt air mist, rolling in from the sea, is not overpowered by sickening sweet smells of cotton candy.

The summer curmudgeon seeks quiet. For them, the beach should be a place of relaxation and restoration, not one of white-knuckle rides, shrieking children, loitering teenagers who should be working, and careening college kids who can't hold their liquor.

And so here is one summer curmudgeon’s list of the quietest beaches and boardwalks in New Jersey.

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Sister Mary Ann Mulzet looks at the waves breaking only 30 yards away from the St. Mary by-the-Sea before Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey in 2012. The hotel-sized retreat house, which opens to a secluded public beach, has survived 150 years of violent storms. (Star-Ledger file photo)

Cape May Point

Let the tourists invade Gingerbread Land to the East, filling the Victorian B&Bs and hotels to capacity. At the point, all is quiet. Paths through the dunes lead to underused beaches where the Atlantic meets the Delaware Bay. The most serene place at the Jersey Shore? Easily St. Mary by-the-Sea Retreat House, a prayer and contemplation center that has miraculously dodged hurricanes and nor’easters for 150 years.

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There are more horseshoe crabs than people on the sand at Gandy's Beach in the Delaware Bay. (Star-Ledger file photo)

Gandy's Beach

Want to get away from it all? Really, all? Gandy's Beach and other Delaware Bay beachfronts like Fortescue, Moore's Beach and East Point, with its restored lighthouse, are more like wildlife refuges than tourist traps. The home of the horseshoe crab, the bay is home to nesting osprey and bald eagles.

Sparsely populated with houses on stilts or trailers, the residents don’t look at you strange because they’re unfriendly. It’s just that everybody knows everybody.

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The beaches at Island Beach State Park are generally less crowded than more popular shore towns like Belmar and Seaside Heights. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media)

Island Beach State Park

Former Gov. Chris Christie isn’t the only one who enjoys the isolation of Island Beach. There are plenty of places to walk through the shrubbery of red, black and purple chokeberry, huckleberry and dangleberry and leave lonely footprints in the sand. One drawback. Poison ivy grows rampant.

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A woman has the beach all to herself at Island Beach State Park earlier this year. (Ed Murray | New Jersey Advance Media)

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The best quiet boardwalks in New Jersey are the ones with no commercial development like the south end of Seaside Park, Ocean Grove, Spring Lake and this stretch in Long Branch where Jacqueline Oved, of Deal, form left, Frieda Sitt, of Allenhurst, and a friend who declined to be identified warmed up for a run last year. (Russ DeSantis|For NJ Advance Media)

Seaside Park

Not far from the maddening crowd of the Seaside Heights boardwalk is a quiet stretch of planks at the south end of Seaside Park. While it’s true the north end of “The Park” has amusements contiguous with Seaside Heights, the boardwalk eventually curves behind the dunes, where the rustle of dune grass is music to the ears of someone trying to escape the carnival cacophony of Casino Pier.

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A row of the tents that makes up the eclectic and long-standing village of over 100 canvas tent-houses in Ocean Grove (Star-Ledger file photo)

Ocean Grove

Except for the weekly concerts at The Pavilion by the Ocean Grove Summer Band, the boardwalk of the Camp Meeting Association is party-free. It is a place where serenity and manners are valued. No f-bombs being dropped, no skateboards banging around, no trash from boardwalk junk food joints. It is a commercial-free zone, like many of the summer curmudgeon’s best boardwalks.

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Elizabeth Johnson plants flowers outside of her Ocean Grove tent. (Star-Ledger file photo)

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Mark Di Ionno may be reached at mdiionno@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MarkDiIonno. Find NJ.com on Facebook.