"Road Trip" Tripped Up by Mother Nature...Almost....!

The days preceding our already-once-weather-postponed "Road Trip" to Foster's Memorial Beach ("Long Beach") in Sag Harbor -- now rescheduled for Columbus Day -- were marked by declining temperatures and lots of rain -- including a late overnight shower...One by one, prospective "Road Trippers" defected, and by our planned departure time of 7:00 a.m. only five were left -- just enough to fill the "Pod-mobile" and allow room for gear and grub. Carole Wickham, Kathy Wickham, Karen Ruth and I set off from Huntington, picking up Annmarie Kearney-Wood and her freshly baked crumbcake along the way, and anxiously watching the thermometer as it gradually crept upwards from the low 40s into the low 50s as we made our way eastward and the sun broke through the remaining clouds. We arrived at our destination to find Long Beach in turmoil -- with a chilly northerly wind whipping the surface of Noyac Bay into whitecaps as wave after wave rolled in to the shore. Annmarie and I were undeterred, but Carole, Kathy and Karen voted to retreat inland, so after a quick detour to Big Fresh Pond in Southampton where we dropped off the dissidents and their gear, Annmarie and I returned to Long Beach where we enjoyed a lively, delicious swim in cool, clear, delightfully salty water....

 

 

It really is a l-o-n-g beach!

We would have kept swimming forever, but mindful that our Pod-mates were stranded without us, we cut our swim short and, still in our wetsuits, headed back to Big Fresh Pond. Carole, Kathy and Karen were still basking in the windless, flat, calm, and significantly warmer water, so Annmarie and I jumped in for a quick swim across, happy to be able to rinse our wetsuits and our bodies in the fresh water of the pond and add an easy half-mile to our yardage! Once on land we all toweled off, changed to dry clothes, and hunkered down at a nearby picnic table for a feast of bagels, crumbcake and hot coffee. 

Annmarie, wait! I have to put the camera away!

 

Karen and Annmarie

Yeah, what about it?

There's one here, too!

The ride home was peppered with politics and personal revelations, as well as promises of a return trip next year, for our Third Annual Road Trip to Long Beach in Sag Harbor...Maybe you'll join us....See you in the Salt!

"Road Trip" Tripped Up...Otherwise, It's "Swimming as Usual"!

Yesterday's Road Trip to Long Beach in Sag Harbor was unfortunately rained out, but today dawned sunny and clear, if a tad chilly, and the line of swimmers' cars waiting to get into the beach at West Neck stretched back nearly to the roadway as we waited for the lifeguards to arrive to open the gate (thank you, Julia!).  With the tide dead-low but incoming, the Sailboat beckoned in the distance, and the assemblage of a dozen or so swimmers (minus those who were participating in the John Daly One-Mile Ocean Swim in Long Beach (the other Long Beach!) slogged up-current through unusually murky water that -- happily --cleared as we traversed the Causeway. Pockets of September-cold, though, nudged up against the still-sultry August water, prompting even those of us wearing wetsuits to cut short our usual Sailboat-social and head back to the beach even before the back of the pack had arrived.  The stragglers' eventual return to the beach turned out to be an anxious one, but the imposing-looking Lloyd Harbor Police officer they saw chatting the rest of us up by the showers was a "friendly" -- the Pod's own Vinnie O'Shaughnessy, who promises to join us Tuesday morning for our 6:30 swim! 

 

The day was too gorgeous to go back inside, so Carole and I rounded up various friends and family members and spent the afternoon kayaking and paddleboarding from the Mill Dam in Huntington Harbor through the channel into Huntington Bay past the Lighthouse and then deep into Lloyd Harbor. Past the last of the moored boats, Lloyd Harbor -- which would be virtually empty of water at low tide -- was vast and still and silent but for the cacophony of bird calls our arrival set off, as scores of egrets, osprey, hawks and herons took flight, scolding us for the interruption. The Sailboat -- its mast, anyway -- was plainly visible beyond the "house at the end of the Causeway," but no more reachable then than when I have it in my goggle-sights and am trudging towards it against a relentless current...much like I'll be doing again on Tuesday morning...See you (and Vinnie?) in the Salt!

"Do You Know the Muffin Man?" (er..."Muffin Woman"?)



The just-turned tide was coming in with a vengeance as nine swimmers set out for the Sailboat on this beautiful Friday morning. The water was flat and calm when we all started, but the wind spiked midway through and a surging chop on the surface of the water added to the challenge of the in-rushing tide. Margot and I were pacing one another at a pretty brisk rate and 30 minutes later were still looking wistfully at the Sailboat, which seemed to just keep receding into the distance. Eventually we made it there, followed by Joan, then Gae and Joye, and finally Sharon and her daughter Rachel, joining the Pod for her introductory open-water swim!  Rachel, who up until now had been strictly a pool swimmer, earned her Sailboat badge handily, and despite being obviously tired by the end, promised she'd be back for more!  And why wouldn't she, when on our return to the beach, we were greeted by Susan Robinson, bearing a plate of fresh-baked muffins for the Pod!  Yum!  (Don't tell Rachel this doesn't happen every time!)

Sharon and Rachel



"Look at my arm!...And ain't I a woman?" (Joye, powering to the Sailboat)

Margot and Joan

Steve Lutz, enjoying the last day of his vacation!

Tomorrow some of us will be setting out early for the West Neck Pod's first ROAD TRIP of the season, to the lovely "Long Beach" (a/k/a "Foster's Memorial Beach") on the south shore of Noyac Bay in Sag Harbor.  We're anxiously watching the weather reports and hoping that the thunderstorms predicted for tonight and tomorrow don't happen -- or if they do, that they happen somewhere else! (Watch for updates on Facebook!)  Weather permitting, we'll see you at the west end of the Long Beach parking lot at 7:30! The rest of the Pod will be swimming as usual at West Neck Beach at 8:00 on Saturday morning (weather permitting, of course!) and we'll all be back together again on Sunday morning -- all, that is, but our brave Podders who are participating in the John Daly One-Mile Ocean Swim in the other Long Beach -- on the south shore! Good luck to Evelyn Cruise, Colleen Driscoll, Margot Edlin, Barry Goldblatt, David Kaufman, Andrea O'Brien, Rob Ripp, Susan Robinson, Alice Rogers, and Erik Zaratin!  (Who's bringing the muffins??)

See you in the Salt!

Columbus Day Road Trip a "Swimming" Success...!

In a modern-day version of "The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria," "The BMW, The Mazda and The CRV" made landfall in the parking lot of Long Beach, Sag Harbor, early Monday morning to commemorate the explorer spirit of Christopher Columbus with the West Neck Pod’s first-ever "Road Trip"! As has been oddly typical of this 2011 late-open-water-swimming season, all of the day’s explorers were women, and Pod members Annmarie, Susan, Gae, Carole, Kathy, Kaitlyn and I wasted no time in suiting up in summer-like temperatures under brilliant blue skies and hitting the crystal clear water (with Sarah kayaking alongside) for what was unquestionably the best swim of the 2011 open-water season...! (Seriously – this water was so clear it made Cold Spring Harbor seem like a mud-puddle by comparison!) We swam along the seemingless endless shoreline for nearly a mile, then lingered at the jetty in an endorphin-induced euphoric state that sparked various hijinks (see the video!) including synchronized swimming exhibitions and demonstrations of don’t-try-this-at-home "lifesaving" techniques....Ravenous hunger eventually forced us back to the beach where we enjoyed a banquet feast of bagels, coffee, cupcakes and tunafish sandwiches lavishly spread out on the hood of Annmarie’s BMW, after which Gae, Annmarie, Sarah and I returned to the water (sans wetsuits) for some leisurely, languid, don’t-ever-want-to-get-out noodling-around swimming before we all set out for the westward journey home....For some of us (Gae, Carole, Kathy, Karen and I), it was "back in the West Neck Salt" this morning, with another swim planned for tomorrow (Wednesday) at 6:45, but you can expect that next year's open-water swimming season will include a lot more "road trips" -- and it won't be long before we're tasting the Salt at Long Beach again!  See you in the Salt!

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