Saturday, January 17, 2015

FW: Hiking Fire Island today

From: Martin VanLith

 

 

My high school friend Dennis Fagan and I have hiked Fire Island every year on our birthdays since the late 1960s. Today was really fun. 

Text is above the pictures.

Nope, not a Muslin burka. It's Dennis dressed for a cold day on the ocean beach. Today, Jan 16, is Dennis's 70th birthday 

 

 

 

 25-30 MPH WNW wind -

 

 

 Pretty much the same blowouts still there from Irene (2011) and Sandy (2012), nothing new. Ocean did over-wash these blowouts in a December nor'easter but it seems to have done little damage. Overall the beach seems to be in good shape, slowly rebuilding.

 

 

 We're in the middle of the island in a area that once was a swale but now covered with washed over beach and dune sand -

 

 

 

 There are sections of the island that weren't damaged at all, looks the same as before Irene. - 

 

 


 

 

 The former small oases of scrub pines that used to dot the old Burma Road are all dead.  

 

 


 

 

Pictured is the east side approaching the reopened Smith's Inlet -

 

 

 There is a sand bar now that stretches from near the island northward to Pelican Island -

 

 

 outgoing tide -

 

 

 

 

 

 Didn't see any whales, seals or turtles. They may have been around but the ocean was too rough to see anything in it. -  

 

 

 If you are interested, I also took some video of the inlet.

 

 --Marty