I remember the excitement of our yearly vacation to Montauk. Our family would rent an efficiency or a cottage at one of the hotels on Old Montauk Highway, directly across from the beach. The drive out always culminated in a trip to the IGA in Montauk to stock up on food for the vacation. The IGA is just over the dune from the ocean beach, so my brother and I would get out of the car and run up over the dune to get our first glimpse of the ocean and our first scent of the sea air. It was always a very exciting moment.
That's why I return to the East End every summer. I actually cannot stand a lot of the people out here, but the beaches are incredible. This year, however, the beach seems to be in the process of reshaping itself in a big way. Instead of a soft, sandy, gradually descending bottom, the shoreline has a quick drop and a lot of gravel. In previous years, the break has been pretty consistent, so all you need to do is get out quickly, dive through a few waves and you are beyond the point where you'd get dumped by a big wave. It's like having a net game in tennis; you've got to commit to going to the net or you get caught in no-man's land and you get crushed.
This year, the break is confused and all over the place. Odd little sandbars pop up everywhere and make it hard to get out to a point where you are not going to be crushed. More importantly, the rip current is much stronger than it has been in previous years. I've never really been afraid of the current, but on Friday I went in for an evening swim and got myself to a spot where I gave myself a bit of a fright. I managed to walk out beyond the break without getting clobbered, but in the middle of every set, there would be one or two waves where the receding water from the previous wave would suck me out towards open water with a lot of power. I was out at a point where I could not touch bottom. Normally, that wouldn't bother me, but I also noticed that I was having trouble getting back towards shore and I was starting to feel pretty exhausted.
The moment passed quickly as I managed to swim onto the crest of a wave and ride it back towards the sand bar, but I was reminded that I am not 20 years old anymore and that I need to be careful with strong currents. I haven't been doing any lap swimming recently either and those martinis are not helping my fitness. It was frightening how quickly I got tired. I know that if you are caught in a real riptide you should swim parallel to shore until you get out of the rip, but I was already pretty beat and the thought of having to swim downshore for a 1/4 mile or so was not appealing.
Sadly, I discovered this morning that several people along the south shore of Long Island had not been so lucky as I was.
1 comment:
Pretty frightening shit... I remember living in VA and the officer's club pool had beach access. I took Jr. life saving class there and we were taught a great deal about rip currents and such. I never really paid it much mind until I was out goofing off in the surf while an off coast storm happened to be creating wild conditions with large breaks. Before I even knew it, it had carried me out and away from the club beach and was pushing me back in front of concrete sea wall lined shores.
Since we'd just gone over all this shit in class and I was in the best shape of my life, I managed to not panic and swim my way out of it, but man was I whipped by the time I got back in.
I'd be shark food if it happened today.
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