A rhythm rocks

these boats, sails furled

tight as language ….

(“For Graham Everett,” Ray Freed)

Today’s ten-mile paddle was calm and uneventful. I’m sure there were more stories going on than I noticed, but I’d rather let the pictures do the work.

Moriches Inlet in the distance and a quiet place to have a snack.

Near the Smith Point Bridge I moved to the north side of the bay to stay close to my next few put-ins.

A few old duck blinds and fishing shacks dotted the less peopled parts of the shore.

I made it near to John Boyle Island, but the birds there did not want me to land. A black-backed gull even dive-bombed me a few times when I was close to shore.

I headed for the Bellport Marina along the northern shoreline and waited for my ride. Sometimes furled sails and language are the best way to tell a story with the detail. Less can be more.

The dockmaster at Bellport Marina is now one of my favorite Long Islanders.

“Such is a glimpse of the Fire Island barrier, but what an infinitude remains, unlearned, unseen!” (Robert Cushman Murphy, “August on Fire Island” American Museum of Natural History pamphlet, 1950) 

We had left a car at Lashley Landing after the building manager Tom at Rogers Beach suggested it would be the better place to leave a car and for take out. We then drove 9-10 miles down Dune Rd. all the way to our starting point.

It was a foggy morning at Ponquogue Bridge. Maria and I parked the car and began unloading kayaks and gear. A couple with heavy Russian accents were readying their fishing gear for striped bass as we readied the kayaks on the western side of the parking area under the bridge.

You going fish in those? he asked, pointing to the kayaks.

No, I returned. Just paddling. Question marks do appear over people’s heads sometimes. I promise.

Luck to you, he said shaking his head side to side. He was worried about our safety.

I guess it’s a fair reflection about the efficacy of so much time given to paddling with no return of food or money. My Russian-American fisherman goes to the bay to enjoy the respite from work, neighborhood, and spend some time with his partner outside of cleaning, meals, TV, lawns, bills, and other such chores. I wanted to ask him if the goal was fish or reflection, but the language barrier would keep us from meeting at this far point of teleology. For myself,  I guess I’m still looking for threads to weave into a fabric, an artifact, a myth to drape around my shoulders. Murphy’s note about what is “unlearned, unseen” on Fire Island is about what people ignore, pass by, don’t notice or avoid. I guess I’m trying to pay attention, pass into, notice, and encounter and to do so, means I have to take up a new story, a new vantage point while drawing from the best of the old stories passed down.

Today’s trip was going to be far less turbulent and edgy than the last, in Shinnecock Bay and a mild, cooler day, and water depth for most of the trip stayed between 2-3 ft deep. That’s not to say there wasn’t a lot to see, but we did end up dragging the kayaks more than a few times until we got into the Quogue Canal. The eelgrass beds covered huge swaths of the shallows.

The birds were abundant: sanderlings, lesser egrets, and a heron every now and then. Least terns dipping and scooping breakfast and an osprey catching a good-sized menhaden.

We stayed to the south near the barrier land and found a channel around Lanes Island. I noted later on the computer the rectangular grid of trenching.

Lane Island Trenching

Salt marsh ditching became prevalent in the US as Public Works Programs in the 1930’s and was largely an attempt to combat mosquito-bourne illnesses (Koch & Gobler, 2010). Local agencies trench the marshes to drain them and reduce habitat for mosquitoes. However, not surprisingly, it also reduces habitat and food for crabs and fingerlings. Next to erosion control and coastal processes, trenching for mosquitoes may be one of the more controversial changes to the area and is currently thought to act as conduits for pollutants to enter our local bays.

Duck blinds also dotted the islands and marsh areas. The above blind offered a nice perch for an osprey who stared us down as we rounded the island. It was four days before full moon so female horseshoe crabs were beginning to find the shallows along the shoreline to lay their eggs and scuttled “across the floors of silent seas” (apologies to T.S. Eliot).

We saw only one with a small male attached.

Last year when I was helping with a horseshoe crab count, I saw one female with 3 males attached, where the satellite makes make sure they too get a chance to fertilize the eggs when laid. Horseshoe crabs are one of the oddest creatures you’ll come across on the night shores of Long Island in late May to September. They generally breed  during high tides of the new and full moons. And yes, as a species, they have been around since before dinosaurs (some suggest over 450 million years). Through the summer you’ll find dead ones and molted carapaces washed up on the shores and in the marshes. They’re harmless and in that strange/alien way, cute.

We paddled close to the southern shoreline but had to be careful off and on about hitting shallow water. I was amazed by the bravery of one intrepid boater flying in to Dockers Waterside Marina and Restaurant as the dredged channel was marked but a thin line to thread at his speed. Clearly, he had a hankering for some lunch.

The bay narrows at Penniman Creek to the north and signs warn boaters about the 5 mph speed limit and no wake zone. A couple of kayakers with fishing poles floated around the sign in the middle of the creek. Not far into the canal a local police boat sat in wait of violators. We smiled and waved at him as we slowly paddled by. I’ll try to keep the wake down officer, I through out as an icebreaker. He laughed enough to let us know he’s not just his job.

Entering Quogue Canal in kayaks is a little surreal. It was dug in 1895 to connect Quantuck and Shinnecock Bays. Around the same time, the train line made its way here and wealthy New Yorkers began to buy up property. By the time we passed the Quogue Field Club, the canal narrowed to bulkheads and mansions. We took the right side to cross under Post Lane bridge and the current was strong.

This time of the year was still a bit early for those returning to their summer homes, so the only folks around were the landscape people keeping green lawn green and topiary … uhhh … “topiaried”? Of all the kayaking I’ve done to this point, this waterway was the first I felt I didn’t belong. Yes, even the one boat or two that passed observed the 5 mph speed limit and didn’t crowd us in the canal. But between docks and bulkheads a kayaker should not stop.

The canal opens up to Quantuck Bay, fed in part by the wetlands of Quogue Wildlife Refuge to the north. The bay is small and was home that day to a flock of jetskiers, cutting swiftly one way or the other and flying off the wakes of their species. Murmuration describes the way large flocks of some species of birds seem to move in unison. These folks did not imitate that movement. It was a random, chaotic course they set. Perhaps there was alcohol involved, but I should not judge.

Quantuck Bay narrows to the west to the canal again and not far into this section is the Beach Lane draw bridge. It’s a busy lane as Rogers Beach is just across the bridge and is one of the larger beach areas around.

Clearly in the past, folks did not observe proper use of the area as the Village of Quogue made it abundantly clear. Under Article 1: Access and Use of Quogue Canal:

Maria and I thought it best paddle on into Moneybogue Bay, which for the day’s trip seemed aptly named and made our way past Reedy Island, a small collection of trees on an upland area. We pushed on below the Jessup Lane Bridge to the west which has its draw bridge over to the north side so we headed to the south side to avoid any larger boats.

Just past the Jessup Lane bridge to the south is a small beach with a bulkhead to keep erosion from a large parking lot. 

We had stopped for a protein bar and water and to make sure about how far it was to Lashley Landing, about 1 mile. We were guessing the parking was for the Swordfish Beach Club and since it was around 1PM, no one would mind our resting. Within five minutes, a middle-aged guy and his middle-aged dog came to the edge of the bulkhead and proceeded with a series of questions and awkwardness that said to us we shouldn’t be here.

It was a quick paddle to Lashley Landing, though the road and parking are on the bay side where it is called Picket Point Road. Picket Point is a gorgeous little marsh area reaching out into Moriches Bay. The landing area is just west and the trail to the parking area is short. No one else was parked there, but it seems the kind of area that you’d need to be told where it is.

Maria took some time to wander the marsh where she feels more at home than with humans–just one of the reasons I like paddling with her. She pointed out to me the mutualism between the ribbed mussels and Spartina alterniflora. The mussels take up nitrogen and release it into marsh sediments which helps with Spartina growth which provides predator and heat cover for the mussels.

She went deeper into the marsh following a willet and other birds with foreign calls. I told here to go and find out what they are. I would stand watch.

I did.

PS Any of the above pictures worth a damn are Maria’s.

Of Swells and Surf

A particular danger of the sea is the fact that after successfully getting through one wave, you discover that there is another behind it.

(Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat”)

Today’s jaunt was supposed to be the last in open ocean as I would cross over into Shinnecock Bay at Shinnecock Inlet. However, I had been warned by Chris Paparo, naturalist, writer, photographer and friend, about today’s maritime weather. There’s a bit more wind and bigger swells, he offered. hmmmm.

When I arrived at Sagg Main Beach, the only person around was a young man fishing from shore. I dragged the kayak to the ocean’s edge and readied myself for taking on the surf. I asked him how it was going. Good, lots of hits. Oh, and I saw a shark fin in the water, he offered in a deadpan voice.

Overnight, it seems, newly placed old signs about least tern and plover habitat were put in. Dunes to the south then were closed to the public. It was a cloudy and windy day, but nothing ominous. Spray skirt on, and few pushes put me into the first wave. A few more to crash through, and I was beyond the surf only a bit wet for the wear.

*****

Gentle reader. At this point you might expect a few nice photos of the rolling ocean as in the day before. You will not see these for two reasons: first, the rudder line fouled and did not allow me to lower the rudder; two, the swells were already about two feet high, and the wind and current were stronger than I had noticed on shore. I thought about heading ashore and fixing the rudder, but that meant dealing with the landing and I thought to myself … let’s see how it goes. So the camera did not leave my pocket during the first few hours as I concentrated on keeping the kayak upright!

The menhaden were going about their work of finding striped bass mouths, and I remained on alert for sharks, though I think the young fisherman was trying to create a feeling of adventure for me. He didn’t need to. As I paddled west, pushed by wind and current, the swells grew by the hour. It is a bit of an exaggeration to say I sailed past the Bridgehampton Tennis and Surf Club. It was clearly more of a tennis day as no surfers made their way past the waves.

Soon I could see the area where Mecox Bay sometimes cuts its way to the ocean; however, often these days, local officials decide to bring in heavy equipment and artificially open it in order to flush the pond and lower the risk of blue-green algae blooms. It gets complicated again by locals wanting to open the trench to keep Mecox clear of harmful algal blooms but can’t disturb the terns and plovers, some want the pond flushed to lower the water levels which sometimes flood basements, and others want the beach to remain as is because of erosion concerns. My students like to use the word “natural” about places they see as less-developed. I often will introduce the word “anthropogenic” (meaning originating from humans) to remind them that often areas we might see as “natural” might also be anthropogenically shaped, perhaps even created. I offer them that there is likely nowhere on the globe that we might call “pristine wilderness” because climate change and human impact in one way or another has shaped likely everywhere. Now what do we do? Lament? Or think carefully and critically about how to balance interests of nonhuman and human. It’s never as easy as signs, bulldozers, and nostalgia. Their generation needs a better imagination than mine about how to integrate good science with personal hopes for a healthier environment and balance impacts with our desires for dry basements.

To say I was sailing westward is an overstatement, but my paddling was more about keeping balance in the now 3 ft. swells, and I was being pushed quickly westward by a strong wind. The swells had increased within the first hour from the put-in. Needless to say, without a rudder making the kayak less stable and needing to work harder to keep it outside the surf and not too far out to sea, I became interested in swells. Larry Swanson, Professor in SoMAS, later explained to me that the energy for swells begins potentially a thousand miles away where storms and wind blow across the ocean surface creating friction. This continued friction transfers energy from wind to ocean and swells are formed. Without immediate objects in the way, these swells move from far away, so swell doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with local weather. As these swells get closer to land, the energy comes into contact with the ocean bottom and slows the bottom of the swell and as the top moves faster a wave begins and eventually, here, surf. A sea kayaker tries to find that area beyond the bar of sand where swell becomes wave because fighting cresting waves all day isn’t just unpleasant, it’s dangerous.

However, on a day like today, riding the swells up and down about fifty yards offshore, is also a little unnerving. At the bottom of these 3 ft. swells, I could see only the water around me, and the cresting waves to my right. I learned to let the right-handed side of my paddle ride flat, down the backside of a swell to stabilize the kayak and paddle a little harder when heading up the swell. The few folks walking along the shore watched me disappear and appear behind the swell and waves. I went on the hypothesis that they were worried about my safety, but concomitantly, they likely had a sentiment about that dumbass out there on a day like today. I had a little of the same thought about myself.

I hung on for a couple of hours in this situation–a good sea kayak but no rudder, a blustery wind, 3 ft. swells and growing. I knew Shinnecock Inlet was 7-8 miles away, and I was hoping to arrive when the tide was going in because I would lose any fight against the tide there. But I was making at least 2-2.5 miles an hour and soon saw Cooper’s Beach and the restaurant there. I weighed my options: try to get to the inlet about 2-3 miles away or land here and see if it was possible to carry my boat down Meadow Lane to the beginnings of Shinnecock Bay. The waves and surf were large, but it seemed the most prudent choice.

The lifeguards were still setting up at 10 Am, but they saw me and seemed to understand my situation. A few folks seemed intrigued that I would land in the waves and one took out her cell phone to hope for a youtube moment. Somehow the oceanic gods smiled on me as I entered the waves and rode the cresting waves like a very nervous beginner surfer. When I got to shore, I was able to slide far enough up the beach that next wave didn’t crash the kayak into me. The young woman near where I landed put down her phone with a hint of disappointment. It was usually doesn’t go that well, I said. She returned to Instagram.

I dragged the kayak far enough up the beach to avoid bothering the few beachgoers and left my soaked spray skirt and hat to dry on the boat. I was checking my phone to see how far it would be to put in on the bay side, but the Cooper’s Beach Cafe was just opening and the idea of a good breakfast sandwich deeply appealed to me. I left my Tevas and dry bag outside where a couple of guys were putting a new coat of white paint on the trim work on the deck. How’s it going? I offered. They laughed, Better than for you. I guess I looked like what my mom would call a soaked cat. Inside a young person asked me what I’d like and the chalkboard menu listed all the breakfast sandwich possibilities. One was called something like The Chunk, The Kitchen Sink, or The Everything and More. Sounded good.

As I sat on the deck, a stocky 40-something year-old came out and asked me how I was. He’d seen me land and had readied himself to help if it didn’t go well. Danny Sweezy was the new owner of the cafe. He told me he had retired early as a surgery nurse at Stony Brook Hospital because the hours were difficult on his young family. He said now he works his six to seven months of the year and can spend time with his wife and kids the rest of the year. Best decision ever! he noted. I told him about my circumnavigation, and he laughed a bit but also seemed supportive of this kind of encounter. He was a local, having grown up not far from here, and had made his way as fisherman to construction to school to nursing and to something new–a more common progression on Long Island than you’d imagine. I asked him about going back out to sea here and paddling through the Shinnecock Inlet. No, he said with the voice of someone who has worked in medicine dealing with unstable patients. My sandwich arrived with its multiple meats, cheeses, and perhaps a baker’s dozen of eggs. I ate every bite. A damned good hearty breakfast made into a sandwich!

Without saying anything, Danny got up and disappeared into the cafe. About the time I finished the sandwich, he pulled up in his Ford F350 and backed it up toward the deck. Get your kayak, he said. I’ll give you a ride to the bay put in. I don’t want to worry about you all day. I loaded the kayak into his truck and sat in the back to hold it down as Danny drove the mile down to the first dirt road access to the bay (Road A and Meadow Lane). He backed the truck down the road until the bay was only a few yards away. Sometimes, as a southerner, we hold to the idea that in the south people are more caring, sharing, and amenable to others. We think because we say howdy to most everyone we see walking down the street that we hold to our parents’ and grandparents’ values of being good people. Now that I’ve been on Long Island for four years, I have to say, yes, it’s different from the south that people don’t open up as easily, but when you need someone’s help, good people are good people, North or South. He shook my hand and gave me a quick nod to keep going on my trip. Someone needs to do it. It seems like it ought to be you.

I readied the kayak for put in around the Heady Creek area of Shinnecock Bay, directly south of the Shinnecock Bay Indian Reservation. The bay is shallow here, no more than 2-3 feet and lots of eel grass beds. I hung close to the southern spit of land, though that also meant I had to get out a couple of times and walk the kayak to deeper water.

The wind blew hard from east to west, so oftentimes, I didn’t need to paddle at all. As I got closer to the inlet, I noticed 9-10 boats lined up along the channel at the inlet fishing for striped bass. Ponquogue Bridge was my destination for the day, and it made its west horizon appearance as I rounded the busyness of inlet fishermen.

I pulled onto the beach-marsh area just east of the bridge. Old Ponquogue Bridge Marine Park gave me a place to wait for Maria to come and pick me up . It had been an adventurous day, perhaps too adventurous at times. I was thinking to myself that I also need to remind my students that as much we need to understand that “nature” might be anthropogenic, it does not mean it cares about us. Swells do what they do in becoming waves and surf. Sometimes we are just riding them in a rudderless kayak, hoping for the best.

And sometimes, along with hope, there’s a good breakfast sandwich.