Today’s paddle would be a relatively short one with the goal being Pine Creek Harbor in Noyak, all told about 7 miles and nothing in open water.

Scott and I put in around 930 AM at the canal and headed toward Cow Neck Point. The water was a mirror at times and others a mild ripple. Meschutt Beach was barely occupied–now and then a wandering human being led by a dog. Memorial Day (May 28 in 2018) is considered the season for the east end of Long Island to be occupied again. Summer houses are opened and aired out, boats are de-winterized and put back into water. Vineyards, breweries, farm stands, and local restaurants rejoice. Winter is over. Let the tourist money find its nesting ground.

Bluefish strolled just under the surface but nearly as many as yesterday.

After Cold Spring inlet, there is a mighty golf course on the ridge. Scott reminded me the US Open was going to played not far from here soon (Shinnecock Hills Golf Course). Ah, we nodded.

The paddle toward Cow Neck point was again very mild water and few if any boats. The ridge along the shore though had had lots of erosion-control boulders put in place below the forest leading to Cow Neck Point. Brendan J. O’Reilly in the Jan. 11, 2013 Southampton Patch writes,

Hedge fund billionaire Louis Bacon’s Sebonac property took a beating from Superstorm Sandy in October, and crews are at work this week making repairs to the waterfront. Bacon famously donated a conservation easement of more than 500 acres in Cow Neck to Peconic Land Trust in 2001, according to The New York Times. …. In late December, a barge carrying 400 tons of stone ran aground on the Great Peconic Bay shore in Hampton Bays, and local excavation companies responded to help. (“Barges of Boulders Shore Up Cow Neck After Sandy“) 

To the north is Robin’s Island, also owned by Louis Bacon, who has set aside most of it as conservation easement. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/17/nyregion/closely-guarded-secrets-some-islands-you-can-t-get-to-visit.html?pagewanted=all

The goal today was to hug the coast from Cow’s Neck Point to Jessup Neck (about 1.5 to 2 miles), portage across and finish at Noyak/Mill Creek Bay another quarter of a mile to the east.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, arriving at Jessup’s Neck, we noticed the long orange snow fencing cutting across the entire neck. The netting typically means a protected site for terns or plovers; no crossing is possible. Jessup’s Neck is named after John Jessup who took over the land in 1679, but the entire area is the “Elizabeth A. Morton National Wildlife Refuge, a 187-acre peninsula on Noyack and Little Peconic Bays” (https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Elizabeth_A_Morton/about.html).

Plovers are listed as endangered in New York, relevant mostly Long Island since they are shore birds, though a few pair nest on Lake Ontario. Plovers were decimated a hundred years ago for food and hunting, reestablished after the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, yet their numbers have plummeted again by shoreline development and disturbance in the dunes where they nest. Long Island is the nesting site for around one quarter of Atlantic Coast population(https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7086.html). Many locals don’t care for some of the public beach areas being closed. It isn’t uncommon to see a bumper sticker stating Plover. Tastes like Chicken. East End Long Island is an odd mix that way … people who define themselves so much by the bays, pine barrens, shores, dunes, and ocean. To say you are an eastender carries some clout with other eastenders. They’ll say this place and its impact on their families define them in part. Yet ask about the decline in fish stocks, algal blooms in the summer bays, the shoreline homes few eastenders can afford and an unsurprising nostalgia seeps its way into their story. I’ve often wondered when we begin to reconcile things like fencing cordoning off protected areas or dealing with overdevelopment with our nostalgia. Maybe nostalgia is in part always fictional, but much of what we long for in nostalgia are the very things the endangered species and other regulatory acts are trying to return. They’re certainly not doing it perfectly, but it’s better than watching so much disappear and slipping deeper into longing for the past and not working for the future.

Sure enough the signs and fencing were up and no portaging here. The fences will be up until September when they return to their wintering grounds in the south. We had the choice to paddle all the way around Jessup’s Neck or drag the kayaks up the trail to the parking lot at the wildlife refuge. We walked up to the bird-viewing platform and looked out across the area. The restrictions will be in place until August 31 (https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/2017%20Morton-Amagansett%20Beach%20Closure.pdf). So up and around the neck or wait here for our ride from Maria? A young couple wandered up to the viewing scope, smiled at us, and looked over our soaked clothing and down to the kayaks on the beach. Having fun?, one asked. Sure, I answered. The gods knew just where to stop those glaciers back when. I meant it as a conversation starter. They turned and walked away, clearly not wanting follow-up discussion on deities and glacial deposits. Scott said it’s a good place to stop, having overheard the conversation. He had a bit of a scowl toward my tone.

 (photo by Scott Schram)

The parking area for the refuge is a quarter mile away. We loaded all the gear into the kayaks and decided to carry both at the same time, front and back. My Perception Sea Lion is a nice sea kayak–stable and solid, but it is heavy. We switched places every hundred yards or so, Scott making it farther than I during my turn. During our walk, a “gang” of turkeys sauntered the path in front of us. I use the word “gang” because in wondering what a flock of turkeys might be called I found, “a group of turkeys — has many awesome and unusual descriptive nouns, including a “crop”, “dole”, “gang”, “posse”, and “raffle” (http://blog.nwf.org/2011/11/twelve-unusual-and-fascinating-facts-about-wild-turkeys/). Posse would have worked too, but I tend to think of it in Texas terms, not in celebrity hangers-on.

 (photo by Scott Schram)

At the refuge center, Carly, a summer intern with SCA (Student Conservation Association), made way for us to load the kayaks on the car near the buildings. It saved us another hundred yards. whew. Carly’s work for the summer is doing bird interpretation and education for visitors and groups as well as monitoring the plover and tern sites. Sometimes I worry for the future of all the nonhumans out there, but listening to Carly’s commitment and joy reminds me, her generation/my daughter’s generation are better informed than I was at that age. It’s up to their choices, and clearly a few of them are making good ones. Maybe they’re the answer to my nostalgia rumination above.

Scott heads back to Texas tomorrow. I’ll miss him; his friendship is immeasurable; our paddling trips are always a picaresque of characters more intriguing than the narrator. I told him to fly back and complete the last two days of the circumnavigation with me. When’s that?, he laughed. well said, Scott.