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
