As the sun sets on 2011

I literally wanted to see the sun set on 2011 so I took advantage of the spring-like weather and cast off onto Smithtown Bay. The water was like glass! It was like someone was saying to me, "Beach Lady, you have no excuse to not drag that 60-lb kayak down to the water and go out paddling!" If it's this warm tomorrow I will have to put my money where my mouth is and go for a New Year's Day Polar Bear swim. Happy New Year!

When you walk through a storm...

I think I saw the Port Jeff ferry hiding out in Smithtown Bay. I am not kidding! What other huge white vessel could it be? It was way off course, I'll tell you that much. I think it may have tried to cross the Sound and then headed towards the bay to wait it out. You couldn't pay me to take the ferry across the Sound today! I walked to the Big Rock and was almost blown away. The crashing waves reminded me of a disaster movie. It must be a helpless feeling to be on a ship at sea when the wind and water are trying to kill you. I think I will go back down to the beach just to make sure that the ferry didn't ground itself. I know I call myself the Guardian of the Bay, but this might be more than I can handle.

Christmas Eve Eve

A beautiful sunset and balmy evening. I am looking forward to my best friends coming here tonight for drinks and laughs and of course PRESENTS! I am declaring Christmas Eve Eve an official holiday.

Use your imagination

Hello to my Smithtown Bay Blog followers. I have some bad news. My camera broke and so it is off somewhere in Illinois being repaired. (No doubt having a grain of sand removed from the lens at a cost of $89, but that is the price of doing business here in a sandy paradise.) So you will have to use your imagination tonight. Today I was down at the beach for sunrise to meditate. Do you know when you have your eyes closed, sometimes the water and waves can sound like the traffic off a major highway? What is Mother Nature trying to tell us? Despite the similarity in sound, I am glad when I open my eyes I see the water and not a bunch of cars! The sky was gray and overcast today. It was pretty wavy and not a kayaking day. I shared my breakfast with some seagulls. They always make me laugh. I swear I will be coming back as a gull in my next life. They just look like they have so much FUN! A little plane flew over and I waved and it actually waved back with a dip of its wings. I found some bones in the sand over by the dunes. They are big! Could be a deer, of course, but nonetheless, I am bringing them into the medical school on Monday to see if they are human. How cool is that to be able to bring bones to work and have someone there who can probably tell you what the deal is. I like working with smart doctors! The photo is an old one. Like a rerun.

Wheels turn slowly

I finally got validation this week from the County of Westchester who runs the Mamaroneck Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). They definitely underestimated my tenacious personality and the fact that I LOVE MY BEACH.
In March 2011 the WWTP in Westchester, across the Long Island Sound, released thousands of little plastic filters into the Sound. The filters, which look like wagon wheel macaroni, are used to remove nitrogen from waste water. The plastic filters reached our shores here. I was angry because I felt that the authorities did not do enough to clean up and they were never fined. So in May I collected about 250 of the wheels between West Meadow and Crane Neck and I shipped them back to the plant with a letter. I asked officials why they never removed the garbage. I never heard back from them.
Throughout the year I continued collecting and saving the wagon wheels. Then about a month ago after a storm, hundreds more washed up on our beaches. I wrote a second letter to the WWTP’s Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Facilities Thomas Lauro. I asked for some answers and enclosed about 200 more wagon wheels in a box with the letter. Mr. Lauro finally wrote back to me.
I have a few comments about his letter. First, despite the fact that Mr. Lauro never says “Thanks for taking the time to pick up nearly 500 of our plastic wagon wheels from your beach,” I really do appreciate the fact that he wrote back to me.
He calls the plastic wagon wheels, “media” which, even though I work at a medical school and people assume I am scientific due to osmosis, I still had to look up the use of the word. It’s “water-filtration speak” for a “filter.” He states twice that the release of the media was NOT due to carelessness. Okay, but I still think the WWTP should have been fined. He also states that he was unable to come onto our beaches because there was no public access at the end of Old Field Road. Come on. They are the government. Couldn’t they have called someone in Old Field and asked “Where’s a good spot to go down to the beach?”
I am personally inviting Mr. Lauro and his cleanup crew to come to my house. They can park in my driveway and I will escort them down to the beach so they can finish cleaning up the “media.” Then, I will be satisfied. Because, Mr. Lauoro. I love Smithtown Bay and it’s the right thing to do.

Meteor shower! Tonight!

GEMINID METEOR SHOWER:  Earth is passing through a stream of debris from near-Earth asteroid 3200 Phaethon, source of the annual Geminid meteor shower.  Forecasters expect meteor rates to reach 20-to-40 per hour when the shower peaks in bright moonlight on the night of Dec.13/14.  The best time to look, no matter where you live, is between 10 pm local time on Tuesday, Dec. 13, and sunrise on Wednesday, Dec. 14th. Check http://spaceweather.com  for more information and live audio from a meteor radar.

My dangerous life

Why do I relish Saturday mornings so much? (see photos) Well, for one thing, this has been dangerous week for me. Saturdays are so calm and peaceful, but the work week has been dangerous. The other morning the security gate at work tried to kill me when it came crashing down on the roof of my car while I was passing under it. (It wasn’t my fault, I swear!) The loud noise almost gave me a heart attack and thank goodness my bike rack protected my car. My only solace is that I noticed the gate is warped now. Ha ha. Then last night on my way home a log fell off some truck on 25A and I ran over it. BOOM! It was like a fireplace log but I knew one thing--it wasn’t good for the underside of my car. Heart attack #2. Then after stopping off for some wine at my favorite store, I headed down to the beach. I said to myself, I will dress warmly, sit in this chair and maybe start a small fire with my fake Duraflame log. I sipped my cocktail and looked out at the water and then a spark from the fire hit me in the eye. I’m blind. I’ve been blinded, I thought. That’s it. I wasn’t really blinded but I did have to go up to the house and wash it out. I finished my drink and went to the movies. Vampires and wolves seemed a lot tamer than my dangerous life.

Orange Friday

All I can say is that I feel sorry for the poor schmucks who went shopping today and were stuck inside the mall when this happened. It was one of the 10 best evenings at the beach EVER.

Thanksgiving 2011

I started this spectacular Thanksgiving off with a long, long hike along Crane Neck and the beach. This is my report: Lots of black flies. What's up with this? Don't they know it's November? I found dozens of the plastic wagon wheels, courtesy of the Mamaroneck Water Treatment Plant who dumped them into the Sound in the spring. They will be hearing from me again. I sent them a huge box full of them back in March and they never even wrote back. This time I will not be so nice. The tide was unusually high this morning and the sky was like a superhighway for helicopters! Where are all those obnoxious, noisy people going? Are Muffy and Trevor flying out to the Hamptons for turkey dinner?

A fine day for sailing...NOT

Such excitement here on the one afternoon I was home early--fire department rescue trucks and ambulances rushing up my driveway! There was a boater in distress out in my bay! I was just thinking to myself today "What a lovely day for sail." Isn't it funny that some guy from Port Jeff was thinking the same thing? He ended up safe and sound beached on my beach. The fire department and Coast Guard tied his boat up and I guess he will come come back for it tomorrow at high tide. I will go check on it later to make sure there is not a herd of deer having a big party on it. Hmmm, what if he doesn't come back for it? I can't have a cat, but no one said anything about a boat...

The elegant universe

The moon was spectacular last night, but I chose to capture it this morning when it is positioned over the water. It was very accommodating to hang around until dawn, as the pinks and oranges of the new day crept over Smithtown Bay. Everyone was up early today. The deer, the gulls and the poor crabs who became breakfast. The whole bay seems to breath in and out with the tides, like one big giant organism.(a huge ameoba?) It all moves together with the air, the moon and the stars and so do we. We just forget about it sometimes, but we are all connected.

On My deer...

I was on a nature walk today when I ran into a very handsome fellow. It's hard to believe that a buck like this could be living around here. I am referring to the deer, silly. You should know by now that I don't ever meet any men on the beach. He was not one of those scrawny deer that usually populate this area. He looked more like Bambi's daddy! I talked to him for a while and he just stood there on the hill listening, probably just waiting for this silly beach lady to move on. "Hey lady, why don't you check out those seagulls over there? I think one has a crab." I also came across a piece of wood that looked like an animal eating something. I had to take a photo and share it! When I tell you that I walked for over an hour on the beach and did not see another human being, would you believe me? True. Is this Long Island? The sunlight was dazzling today and the photo does not really do it justice.

A force to be reckoned with

The wind was showing its strength today, as wind surfers flew 10 feet in the air and sea gulls only pretended to be in control while flying. The tide had come up very high yesterday from the storm because the shoreline was swept clean this morning of garbage and debris. It was like Mother Nature had run a vacuum all up and down the beach, leaving just smooth sand and rocks. My new stair case remained intact, even though I could tell the water had come up to touch it. I am so glad it's still there because I couldn't take the loss right now. I love my new stair case. I saw a few piping plovers running along the water today and there are still horse shoe crab shells washing ashore every day. That's my report from Smithtown Bay...

Not funded by FEMA

These new stairs I built were not funded by FEMA. I lost my access to the beach after several storms and I have rebuilt...in a fashion. I could not afford to build a new stair case, but I knew that eventually the water would provide what I needed. Then one day a made-to-order piece of a dock washed up down the beach. Thank you Hurricane Irene! My son Alex moved it and put it into place. (Just as an aside...I was telling him to drag it along the beach for like a 1/4 mile when he dragged it into the water and floated it to where it needed to be. It was like I was the caveman with my stupid idea and he was the next generation of humans, with the more advanced idea of how to do it!)I added the little steps to it today so that you don't slide down it. I am so proud of my handy work. I am also fully aware that nothing is permanent on the beach (like life!) and that the next super high tide or storm could take my handy work and float it over to Connecticut. But I will enjoy it while it is here.

Meteor shower alert!

WEEKEND METEOR SHOWER: Today Earth is entering a stream of debris from Halley's comet, source of the annual Orionid meteor shower. Forecasters expect the shower to peak on Saturday morning, Oct. 22nd, with more than 15 meteors per hour.  Check http://spaceweather.com

MASSIVE SATELLITE NEARS RE-ENTRY: The massive ROSAT X-ray space telescope is making its final spiralling orbits around Earth. Most experts agree that re-entry will occur during the early hours of Oct. 23rd over a still-unknown region of our planet.  Sky watchers report that the descending satellite can be as bright as a first magnitude star and it occasionally "flares" to even greater intensity.  For last-chance sightings of ROSAT in your area, please check SpaceWeather's online satellite tracker (http://spaceweather.com/flybys ) or turn your smartphone into a ROSAT tracker: http://simpleflybys.com.

Montauk

The Smithtown Bay Beach Lady (me) traveled this weekend to points further east. It's amazing that the Smithtown Bay sunsets do not look that different from the Montauk Point sunrises. Which just proves that we are all just moving through life in a circle, not a straight line.

End of the week glow

I missed the sunset tonight, but I was in time for the afterglow, which stayed in the sky for quite a while. One lone kayaker rushed to get back to land before dark and the bay was quiet and still. A three-quarter moon hung over my shoulder. I read that there will be a meteor shower in North Africa tonight. I get all the emails from Space and Weather.com. My Uncle Carroll set me up with that one. I love knowing when there will be disruptive solar flares on the surface of the sun! It's always a good excuse for a headache at work. "I have to leave early today. These solar flares are just killing my head."

Can you dig it?

Lately, my son Alex has taken up archeology. We are a family of diggers. I can get distracted for hours on the beach digging and exploring. Following the 2010 Nor’easter and then Hurricane Irene, the beach has been giving up some of its long-held secret treasures. The storms ate away a big chunk of the shoreline, thus revealing items that have buried for maybe a hundred years.
This week we found dozens of old bottles, but one of my favorites is a green soda bottle from the Clicquot Club Co. (pronounced KLEE-ko). The Mills, Massachusetts soda company dates back to 1881. For decades this soda company was one the nation’s largest soft drink manufacturers. They specialized in sparkling cider and ginger ale and used pure spring water from that area to make the soft drinks. It is amazing to find items that people used over a hundred years ago. Maybe we have stumbled onto a garbage pile, or maybe it is the remains of one hell of a New Year’s Eve party from 1900.
We are not the only ones who have been finding cool old stuff. I notice that some else has unearthed an old, rusty hand pump that must have junked after indoor plumbing became available. This is one of the many reasons why I love living in this area. There is so much history right out my back door and it hasn’t been paved over or bulldozed or turned into a shopping mall.
I have a fantasy that I end up on the Antique Road Show with one of these bottles, or a rusty piece of metal and the guy tells me “You found Abraham Lincoln’s bicycle,” or “This bottle would go at auction for $30,000,” but usually when I Google them, they are more collector items than money-makers.
I always have the hope that one day Alex will come in the house saying “Guess what I found down at the beach?” and the answer will be “A HUGE diamond.” I’m still waiting.

Tangerine Sea and Sky

I started the day on the water, sailing with my brother in Centerport. I have no photos, but trust me; we were fabulous. I ended the day at the water's edge watching the sky and bay melt into one, as the sunset used every shade of orange in its palette.

Is anybody out there?

It's so quiet today. Hardly any boats. No people. Can any football game be better than this? I suppose that is where everyone was hiding. I will take a front row seat to this any night.

Sept. 16 comes to a close

I LOVE Friday nights. I got down to the beach a little late tonight but it was still totally Zen-like. Except for that rustling in the bushes. Show yourself critter! Every month when I hand over my rent to my landlady I say to myself..."Hmmmm. Okay. Here you go. It's worth every penny."

9-11 Day at Robert Moses

Yesterday was spent at Robert Moses paying tribute to Plainview's own William Burke, a captain in the FDNY Company 21 who died in heroic service on September 11, 2001.

Some photos of Hurricane Irene

I took these photos about mid day on Sunday.

2 p.m August 27

I tied my kayak down as best I could. The water is still extremely calm. I actually went swimming after sweating and dragging the kayak up from below. I pray that Mother Nature does not remodel the shoreline.

Waiting for Irene

Last night was literally the "calm before the storm." The water was like glass and the air was heavy and warm. The only movement down at Smithtown Bay was the lifting of wine glasses and beer bottles to the lips of thirsty and stressed out working ladies. A few little silver fish jumped out of the water. The only sound was the laughing of three friends discussing their lives, jobs and dreams.

Sistine Chapel Sky

Sometimes the camera doesn't show us the same colors that we thought we saw when we took the photo. But tonight I would say that it came pretty close. The sky had the same blues and pastels as the Sistine Chapel. That's what I was reminded of. The sunset looked like the Japanese flag. Some young kids had a fire going down by West Meadow Beach. The winds were starting to stir with a storm coming. The gulls sounded like a group of children arguing over mussels.

“Why are there mosquitoes?”
That’s what my 6-year-old neighbor Kevin asked me a few weeks ago. As I swatted mosquitoes away from my face I replied, “I guess they have a purpose in the Universe,” but I just said that so I did not seem like a horrible person. What I really wanted to say was "We should take a flame thrower and kill every last one of those #@*^$%%.”
But I now have a truthful answer for Kevin. The purpose of mosquitoes is so that companies like Stinger, Off! and Black Flag and stores like Home Depot, Wal-Mart and your local hardware store can make millions of dollars off of saps like me who think they can actually “CONTROL” mosquitoes.
This year I estimate that I have spent a total of $250 on various “mosquitoes must die” products. Let’s review them here and I will give you my honest assessment of whether they work or not. I will start from the most worthless products and move up to the best.
The Off! Clip On Mosquito Repellent – retails for $8.98 (I bought three)
This gadget is supposed to give you “personal protection from mosquitoes. The OFF! Clip-On repellent provides mosquito protection without putting anything on your skin.”
This product gets thumbs down. I watched mosquitoes land on me while I sat there and listened to this thing humming and using up two double-AA batteries faster than you can say “Caladryl lotion.” I found that when you take the gadget in your hand and smash it down on a bug, that seemed to work really well.

The All Natural Mosquito Mist recipe-I got this from the internet at designsponge.com
All the goods cost about $15
1 cup of grain alcohol (organic if available), vodka (ditto) or witch hazel (I used Witch Hazel. What was I thinking? At least if I had used the vodka and it didn’t work, I could have drunk it.)
30 drops (in total) essential oil blend-I used lavender and tea tree oil, but you can also use citronella, rosemary, rose geranium, or lemon. You place all ingredients into a spray mister bottle; shake well and spray liberally over any exposed skin before venturing outdoors.
Results? I smelled very nice, but I was still eaten alive when I stepped out of my house.

The Stinger Insect Mosquito Indoor Trap
by Stinger, retails for about $24.99, plus shipping (I bought three). These indoor mosquito control traps work by attracting bugs with a light, then they get sucked into a screened trap by a little fan and stay in there to die or you can let them go. (Like THAT’S ever going to happen!) I checked the trap after two weeks and I had two gnats in there. All that money, noise and power to run it and I got two gnats.

BlackFlag 40 Watt Bug Zapper: sells for about $49.99-this classic bug zapper is supposed to be placed about 25 feet from your front door and it electrocutes flying insects. However, it gets clogged with moths and since I really don’t dislike moths, what’s the point? It’s hard to gauge how many mosquitoes die in this thing, but I think they just congregate near my front door to avoid it and watch the moths get electrocuted. It’s basically a $50 night light, if you ask me.
Mosquito netting-“Sea to Summit head net” from REI. This sells for about $9, plus shipping. While it doesn’t actually “control” mosquitoes, it enables you to put the garbage out, or go for a walk without losing a pint of blood. (That’s me wearing it in the photo)
However, a rolled up newspaper is still the best mosquito controller I can find. I also like to use a box of tissues to get the ones that congregate on my ceiling. It’s quick and easy. I use a Magic Sponge to clean them off the ceiling the next morning. All this retails for under $5. I have been known to use my hand, too, accompanied by some cussing. This costs nothing!
I know a summer without mosquitoes may be just a pipe dream of mine, but I will still persist, as long as I have a pint of blood left in me. Make that a half pint. I think I just got bit again.

Being There

Last night I reveled in just being. We don’t do enough of that. Our lives are so busy and full that we are always on our way to do something, or thinking about what we should be doing, or two steps ahead of where we are right now. But for the past six weeks I have been present in an alternate universe. It’s the universe of unemployment. I have been “between” jobs, actually, waiting to start a new one in a few weeks. It got me thinking about the last time that I could recall not working for more than a week or two. For me, it was 20 years ago when my son was small and I did not work a “real job” for a few years. But then I started thinking about the last time I was not working and really had no other huge responsibility (like taking care of a baby!) That took me back even further. I was 15. Too young to work, too young to drive, summers off and nothing to do but go to the beach and work on my tan. (A tan that predated our knowledge and concern about skin cancer.) So lately I have had the good fortune to just sit and watch the water, the gulls and the sun go down and for the first time in ages, just spend some time being. Sometimes I hear Oprah saying “Are you living your best life? Are you living intentionally?” and former co-workers asking “Just what do you do all day?” but I just tell them “I’m being one with the world, just being. Does anyone ask a sea gull what he did all day? I’m like the lilies of the field!”
Like Peter says in Office Space:
"I did absolutely nothing and it was everything I thought it could be."
And as I sat there just being, the sun filtered through the clouds (photo) looking like a scene in a movie when heaven is preparing to make a big announcement. Or a miracle was about to happen. Of course I think one happens every night when the sun sets in my backyard.

Blown away

I went kayaking the other morning and the bay was like glass. That’s the way I like it. I am not looking for a challenge. Dragging that two-person, 60-lb boat down to the shoreline is challenge enough. I always do a thorough bug and snake check on it before casting off. I just know that one day I am going to be 500 yards offshore when snake crawls out from some hidden space. It’s like I can see a vision of it happening. I am definitely going to panic, throw myself overboard and then figure out what to do while holding onto the side of the kayak. But I digress from the kayak story. I paddled over to the big rock, which, BTW, looks completely different when viewed from the water! (see photo) Just as I made it to the rock, the winds kicked up and started blowing strongly from off shore. It was intent on pushing me nearly to the LIPA plant in Northport. I had to paddle strongly on one side only. It was like three stokes forward and two back. A relaxing, tranquil outing had turned on a dime. The wind, or El Diablo, as I named it, was trying to tell me who’s boss. The spot on the shore that I was aiming for never seemed to get closer, despite my mad, constant paddling. At least if I died out here, I thought to myself, it will be with really buff-looking upper arms. I thought about George Clooney in “The Perfect Storm.” I think about George Clooney a lot anyway, even when I am not close to drowning. I thought about poor Tom Hanks in “Castaway” and how he never gave up. Then about 200 yards off shore I looked down into the water and realized that it was so shallow I could have hopped out and walked it the rest of the way. But I didn’t. I paddled the rest of the way because I had about a dozen fishermen watching and I do have some pride.

Buzzed

Summer has been giving us a preview and it’s spectacular. The past few days have been what they call in the public relations business “Chamber of Commerce Days.” Smithtown Bay was not as crowded with boaters as I expected. There was a mixture of fishing boats, recreational, jet skis and kayaks. I thought that perhaps the gas prices convinced some families to stay on land. I can imagine the discussion. “Should we eat this week or buy a tank of gas for the boat, Honey?” The beaches were crowded and people from West Meadow Beach even spilled further east along the shore to find some private space. I took my kayak out and paddled over to the Big Rock. There was some kind of unidentified sludge on top of the water over the weekend. All I can say is that it better not be anything that floated over from the Mamaroneck Water Treatment Plant! I do not know what it was, but it could be some kind of algae bloom. (Like I would know how to identify an algae bloom). I have no official credentials. I am not licensed in anything resembling marine biology or environmental science. It was slick and yucky, whatever it was! Today it is GONE. My only gripe-and it’s a big one-are the mosquitoes. I just spent $70 at Home Depot on a varied arsenal of repellents. I even bought that device that you clip onto your pants. It has a little fan in it and blows bad pesticides all around you. I got bit four times in a five minute period. Maybe you are supposed to smash the bugs with the device. Save the $8.99. Tomorrow I am mixing up my all-natural brew of Witch Hazel, Tea Tree Oil and Lavender. If this doesn’t work after spraying it all over my body, then I will just drown the mosquitoes in it.