Is Your Favorite Beach New Jersey's Best?

For the fourth year, the New Jersey Sea Grant Consortium and the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey Coastal Research Center are asking the public to pick their favorite beaches.

Voting is now open online at the New Jersey Top 10 Beaches website.

The results will be announced during the Consortium's "State of the Shore" event on May 26, just in time for the Memorial Day Weekend and the unofficial start of the summer season.

New Jersey boasts 130 miles of beachfront from Sandy Hook to Cape May— now it's time for local residents to do their part in letting the rest of the state know that their patch of sand is No. 1.

This year, the poll asks residents to rate beaches on three separate criteria — best family vacation destination, best day trip and best location for ecotourism. Ocean Grove, Bradley Beach, Avon-by-the-Sea, Belmar, Spring Lake, Sea Girt and Manasquan are among the 48 municipalities represented in the poll.

In the three years that the contest has run, no town in Southeastern Monmouth County has ever made the Top 10.

Last year's winning beaches were:

• The Wildwoods
• Ocean City
• Long Beach Island
• Asbury Park
• Sea Isle City
• Cape May
• Island Beach State Park/Berkeley Township
• Seaside Heights
• Cape May Point
• Avalon

The Wildwoods also won all five of last year's categories including Family Vacation, Tourism, Shore Events and Ecotourism.

Shore residents who may have been bitten by the "shutter bug" also will have a chance to enter the New Jersey Top 10 Beaches Photo Contest. A three-judge panel of experts will judge the photos and choose the winners.