Jones Beach Island: Leg 1 — Jones Beach West End to Tobay Beach
1. It doesn’t get better than this
Beach walking perfection in my mind’s eye must meet at least some of the following criteria:
Temperatures in the upper 60s but not surpassing the low 70s. You both thank God and regret that you brought a sweatshirt with you;
A few large puffs of cumulus cloud, but otherwise a sky that color of blue you only get in September;
A light breeze preferably from the south. Keep it under 10 mph for gentle waves, please;
Mid-tide — preferable to low tide (a bit stinky) and to high tide (perhaps too splashy to walk number 5).
Sand along the swash zone (see number 4) that gives just the right amount under your feet;
Sea foam (see number 3) that gently splashes against your legs with refreshing and reassuring frequency;
Piping plovers that dart in and out of number 6, just a few yards ahead of you;
Artfully placed seagulls who don’t ask you for anything; add in a few oyster catchers for a dash of color;
No more than the occasional fellow shell-seeker or maybe a fisherman or two, there to remind you that you have not been dropped onto a desert island
Friends to walk alongside you.
With the exception of number 3, which was more of a northeasterly wind, and, my mind’s eye became a reality on my recent walk from the newly completed and beautifully designed Jones Beach Nature & Energy Center (well worth a visit) at the western end of Jones Beach State Park to Tobay Beach (about 8 miles), which I strolled with two of my dearest, up-for-anything friends: Alan and John. We did have a bit of a slog through the shifty upper beach sand for the quarter mile or so it took to get from the Nature Center to the surf zone. The beach is quite wide, especially at the west end, thanks to the jetty that keeps the beach from eroding. We hung a left and headed east, since my brother Matt and I had already walked out to the jetty earlier in the summer, thus covering the western extreme of the island.
I love walking with friends who notice things that I don’t. It was John who picked up on the folks staring out at the ocean and who gave us the privilege of seeing what we first thought was a pod of dolphins but was more likely a pod of long-finned pilot whales, given their larger size and shiny, black skins. This species of medium-sized whale — protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act — forms close-knit, maternally-based pods of 10-20 individuals that live up to 60 years, reaching up to a ton in weight and up to 25 feet in length. (source: https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/long-finned-pilot-whale)
2. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
Long Island’s south shore has had a noticeable increase in recent years of sightings of marine mammals and of many kinds of sharks, the latter much in the news. While most visitors to the shore undoubtedly appreciate seeing the types of fins we saw, the shark sightings have been less welcome as attacks on humans and beach closings have become a more common occurrence than anyone can remember. On an earlier trip to Tobay Beach this summer, my beach-walking solitude was interrupted by the sound followed by the sight of a rather large military-style helicopter surveying the waters for the beasts. It seemed a bit much. We’re not talking Great Whites here.
It’s not that sharks are new to the area but there do appear to be more of them and they do appear to be coming closer to shore, much to the chagrin of beachgoers and of lifeguards like my nephew Jake, a lifeguard at Tobay, who has been fielding questions from concerned potential swimmers, mostly folks who won’t put more than their feet in the ocean anyway.
Along with warmer water, there is also just a lot more for them to eat and we are not talking about people here. Sharks are fussy eaters and humans aren’t on their usual menu. The larger populations of ocean predators and marine mammals in general have been attributed to the 2020 New York State law banning what is known as purse-seine fishing of bunker AKA menhaden fish, large schools of which are now easily spotted from the shore. More fish at the bottom of food chain means more for those at the top to eat.
The whales kept pace with us for a bit as we moved east. No sharks were spotted.
3. Art everywhere
Photo by Alan Corcoran
It was Alan who had the inspiration to take the photo of me sharpening the beautiful Art Deco-style Jones Beach Tower AKA the “Pencil” (above) after John, like me a native Long Islander, confirmed that all Long Islanders call it that. This was after they had both made fun of me for carrying a pencil sharpener to the beach. If you carry a pencil, you carry a sharpener. What do they know?
The tower is the prime example of the public art Robert Moses meant to give Jones Beach, which opened in 1929, a ocean liner/destination feel for its visitors, an antidote to the bawdy crowds of Coney Island. The design of the tower, which holds 300,000 gallons of water inside its steel tank, was inspired by St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. This was no Coney Island parachute jump.
Photo by John Coyne
An imaginative and creative sort, Alan also had a knack for transforming in his mind the beach detritus we passed into washed-up sea life. John and I saw it too after Alan pointed it out, only to be disappointed to find again and again that what we thought were surely the remains of an exotic creature from the deep was just a very old balloon or the exterior plastic wrapper of a 12-pack of Poland Springs.
As if to appease Alan’s desire to discover some deceased sea life on the beach, fate did offer us a rare view of a washed-up puffer fish (see photo in gallery above) — Long Island is at the northern extreme of its habitat — which I’ve since learned secretes a toxin about “a thousand times more poisonous than cyanide.” Note to self: don’t touch dead things on the beach.
After stopping at the concessions up on the boardwalk (40 percent off store-wide; yes, I bought T-shirts), we eased our way out of Jones Beach State Park onto Tobay Beach, owned and operated by the town of Oyster Bay of which my hometown of Massapequa is a part. After a quick walk across the parking lot to the bay side and a snack at the Boat Yard, we met my husband, Stan, who, against his better judgment, had kindly agreed to walk with me the following day so I could finish as much of Jones Beach Island as possible over this one weekend. He was as yet blissfully unaware of the trek that awaited him.
All photos by Alan Corcoran and John Coyne. Thanks to these two for walking with me and for being such good friends for well more than half my life.