Long Island's summer heart is pumped by its beaches, bays and boats, and during a cruise on its Great South Bay I was able to take a pulse.
The activity of the area, as evidenced by the overflow of parking on the shores of Marina Bay on a hot, crystal blue Saturday at the end of June, took root both on land and at sea. The family pulled the cooler out of their car onto the sand. An occasional wave of colorful beach towels hinted at the red, white and blue threads stitching the country together and coming soon July fourth. The sweet aromas of suntan lotion rode on the air, like olfactory ways.
The silver silhouette of Robert Moses Causeway, spanning the Great South Bay with the characteristic camel camel bridge, has retained its cable from Long Island, suitable for Johns Beach. White ivory buffalo, as powerful fountains, arose from a variety of motor and fishing vessels flying on the summer "expressway".
By 4:30 pm, a brisk breeze crossing the parking lot from the dark blue and dark gray water to the boat, jumping up to the marina, tamed another sultry 91-degree temperature with a wind full of wind.
Bay Shore itself was created and identified by the water that gave its name. Harvesting fish, oysters and salted hay, her early colonists earned their living using their very treasures, and by 1776 her artisans usually earned a reputation - in this case - for their small skills in making ships. The fruits of their labor played a role in the war for revolution against the British.
But to establish the city on the map communications were required, and these connections with other areas had both water and land chains. In the first case, the planned service of Fire Island, now a narrow ribbon of mainly summer communities, was completed in 1862, and the connection to the Long Island Railway with Manhattan cultivated a steady crop of tourists leaving the city who sprout to this seaside resort for about two decades later went into business: people lined up on their streets with gas, stayed in their hotels and summer estates and went out into the water on their sailing boats. The community quickly earned a reputation as the “Long Island Garden Spot”.
After World War II, permanent residents replaced temporary tourists, as they disconnected from the construction of Manhattan and formed coastal suburbs.
Bay-Shore, located on the widest point of the Great Southern Gulf, today preserves both architectural and maritime heritage.
Centering its jetty and appearance outside the site is a torpedo dedicated to the memory of those who committed the highest sacrifice in the US Submarine Service during World War II.
Also, the appearance of out of place (and epoch) among other ubiquitous fiberglass expressions of smooth, motor speed of slippery boats, was a 65-foot, two-story wooden river vessel at the turn of the century, showing on its stern wind wheel and designed the "Lauren Christie". It was on this ship that I felt the rhythm of Long Island's summer rhythm, and, having gathered a crowd, I would not be alone in my search.
Checking next to my name in the reservation list on the clipboard, South Bay Paddle Wheel Cruises & # 39; mobile office, preceded my step aboard and spurred wooden steps to my assigned starboard table for a three-hour cruise - the table itself was only one remote from the upper deck - a very polished wardrobe with a stick and a magnet for the passengers of the boat, whose mood was set to the boat as fast as I settled into place.
As the music provided by the DJ, although initially initially with a soft blow pumped its way through the deck, the entanglement of the octopus's tentacles stretched from dozens surrounding the bar for raw vegetables, dippers, cheeses, pepperoni and crackers long before the engine was pumped. . The shafts of alcohol passed a refreshing breeze to the door, accessible, though narrow, on the deck at the stern.
Freed from its mooring restrictions and unnoticeably dodging the docking station at 18:00, “Lauren Christie”, demonstrating its three-pound wheelbase, double stacks and the surrounding lattice window frames, easily integrates into the marina exit as an airplane converging on a single runway strip in JFK during its peak evening departure.
The trip to the Ferry of the Fire Island in the gray, corrugated Great South Bay, he drove along the sides, swinging sideways as the cool breeze of the open water fought for dominance with the sound waves of music.
Keeping the southwestern heading under the off-white and gray-metal blanket of the early evening, on which orange silt was pierced on its western horizon, "Lauren Christie" broke into the Great South Bay with a bow, to Robert Moses Causeway.
Sandwiched between the south coast of Long Island and the National Seaboard of Tierra del Fuego, Big South Bay itself, with a length of 26 miles, three miles wide, and an area of 151 square meters. M is both the largest bay area of the southern coast and the largest sea bay in New York State. Injected from 5231 gallons of water per second, has an average of 4.3, but a maximum depth of 20 feet and provides habitat for up to 85 species of fish.
Being a significant domain for the bikers of Long Island, it serves as a major maritime transport artery for fishing, walking, excursions and ferries.
Slipping under the greenish-metal bridge of Robert Moses at 6:45 pm, the riverboat reappeared into the open waters, joining the scatter of the ship, which floats, rising to a gap in the fierce wind, looked like swollen pipes.
With 8.10 miles of West Islip Island and Kaptri Island, the road itself passes through a bridge of state boat bridges to Jones Beach and the western tip of Fire Island. The initial, northern and southern frontier, completed in 1951, was doubled when a second artery was built next to it.
The paddle on the “Loren Christie” wheel, attached to the stern, mainly pushed by the wind with its hand, managed to glide over the surface of the water, each of which passed from its temporary, despite the insignificant, providing failure.
The magnitude associated with both ships and aircraft ensured the rise to regular private jets along their flight paths in the sky from the Republican Airport in Farmingdale.
Dinner, announcing itself in the form of the main deck scents and tickling passengers. ping-ponging stomach pangs, entails a mixed green salad with creamy Italian and Russian dressings; dinners; carved main rib of beef, chicken francaise, Newburgh seafood, rice pilaf and broccoli; chocolate cake-pie and apple tartlets; and coffee.
Correcting it mainly — western to the present southeastern direction — the rowing gate entered the canal of the Captre Island boat, making its way through the light green spots of elgrass, the houses in the docking station, and Captree State Park with its kindred spirit Delta Lady ”, a steamer and fleet of fishing vessels.
Founded in 1954, Captree State Park itself, covering 298 acres on the eastern tip of Jones Beach, is located at the very heart of fishing grounds, where an autumn chest and black fish are delivered from the onion and flounder in the fall. The relief of this sport is two fishing piers, a boat launch ramp with parking for 64 boat trailers and a pool for charter, scuba diving, sightseeing and sightseeing boats. Its other island and water bird includes white pelicans, terns, gulls, common nuts, black skimmers and a duck.
By 19:50, the lighthouse of Fire Island loomed away.
To plug the hole through which many of the Long Island’s entry ships had fallen, which led to failures that prevented them from “entering,” naturally, naturally rose from the once barren land, like overgrown concrete guards wandering warning lights. The first, at Montauk Point, was built in 1796, and its Island of Fire followed 29 years later, in 1825, rising from its edge after construction, which cost only 35 cents, which is less than the budget of $ 10,000.
The 74-foot high-altitude octagonal pyramid, covered by the blue stone of the Connecticut River, both operated trans-Atlantic ships entering the harbor of New York and served as a symbolic milestone for European immigrants arriving in the country of freedom and opportunity.
But its height quickly proved its own flaw, leaving a stunted growth to counteract its intended purpose, and in 1857, Congress allocated $ 40,000 for a nearly 100-foot higher structure on a 82-acre site. Phoenix-like, it stretched from a terrace made from its first version.
For the first time on November 1 of the following year, a red brick tower painted in creamy yellow used a first-order Fresnel lens, rising 168 feet to this occasion, and then transferred the torch to modernity and electricity in 1938 after hiring success with intermittent fuel, such as whale, lard and mineral oil.
But the plug with its goal was dropped 35 years later, when it was decommissioned on the last day of 1973 in exchange for a flash optical tube installed on top of the Robert Moses Water Park State Park. However, its limited, careless lighting direction did not contribute to the safety of the bay.
After the Lighthouse Rescue Society, which appeared in 1982, increased by 1.3 million people in 1982, it was restored in its proposal for the production of electricity, in which the black-and-white groups, introduced back in 1891, took part. Re-illuminated on Memorial Day, May 28, 1986, and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it again became the official navigation aid, its two 1000-watt counterclockwise lights flashing every 7.5 seconds and more visible than 20 miles away.
Passing in the southeast, "Lauren Christie" cleared the community of fire islands of Kismet, which simply received incoming steam. His most western, which also covered the Lighthouse Shores and Sea Bay Beach, he distributed 250 beach houses - most of which belonged to, but additionally rented, by the inhabitants of Islip and the Bay Beach, as well as two restaurants and bars, three guest houses, a grocery shop and 30-drain pool. Its year-round inhabitants consisted of about two dozen people.
The sun broke up with the seas until dusk or, in this case, above the sky above them, revealing a shimmering orange that painted the surface of the bay with tangerine, Swarovski crystal and introduced the horizon with float plasma. The winds were torn down to unprecedented calm, but the dance floor on the upper deck of the Loren Christie vibrated with collective legs that imitated musical rhythm and loudness.
Turning to the northern direction, the wheel-wheel makes its way between the islands of Sexton and Western Fire, ready to close the three-mile gap to its coast, as the heavily stained sea air confirmed the water foundation of the dance floor, moreover, the vibration responded to the rhythm of the summer heart Long Island, which pumped life to the water that surrounded it, and therefore gave it the status of "island".
Hanging over the western horizon, like a rotary helicopter, a cylindrical sun, a blood-red bullet, as a rule, proved that the denouement of the day did little to weaken the pulse spreading along the Great South Bay, as some high-speed boats and another Fire Island ferry - part of the sea equivalent of "rush hour" - overtook the logging boat.
Impatience usually overtook me as I really wanted to get to my destination. But during the summer on Long Island it was here that I, and apparently countless others, went.
The big hand on my watch reached the “30” mark, as at “20:30,” indicating that only half an hour was left to close the distance to the shore and put an end to my temporary suspension from the ground. A dozen on the dance floor, merging into one, step by step songs, did not need hours, as they elevated them to this timeless dimension created by the sun, sea, music and fun.
The last day minute of this last day of June flashed when the edge of the sun plunged into the sea, creating a violet glow on the horizon beyond the Captri Bridge.
Closing the last half mile of Shore Bay, Loren Christie swallowed her throats from the now oily black water with onions, which seemed to have fallen into weightlessness of the sea and sky, recently punched by dots of light that were clearing the approaching coast ahead and 7.5 second interconnected flashes of a beacon The island of fire behind.
Separated from the summer time of Long Island, he turned to the channel of Marina Bay Bay, making his way to the dock at 21:00, and pulled out my cork on the summer heart of Long Island.
