I have lived on Long Island my entire life. I was born in December, but by the summer my parents had me on their boat. We were North Shore water folk then and hung out at Hempstead Harbor and Centre Island beaches when not boating in the Long Island Sound. I get my love for the water from my parents. My mother used to take us to the beach Monday through Friday. We stayed til dinner time every day. During that time we also summered out in East Hampton. We spent our time in the waters of Gerard Drive, playing by the point and trying not to walk past the "dip".
In my early teens I started hanging out on the South Shore religiously, it has been my stomping grounds since. We love Tobay and are there almost every day, but something odd has happened over the past few years.
I remember when I was VERY young finding starfish and hermit crabs. When I was a teen I was too busy finding and catching lifeguards and surfers to worry about sea creatures, but would remember if I did.
It started with my girls finding starfish. I mean LOTS of starfish about two summers ago. A few months after the starfish began they found sand dollars. Then the middle of last summer while sitting at the ocean we saw a school of dolphin swimming and jumping along the coast. This past weekend we had a rather large seal swimming along the shore and two days ago, a little further out east we had sharks.This all makes my ten year old daughter thrilled because she loves the ocean and hopes to be an oceanographer some day, to me it kinda makes me think something else is going on in our waters. What is with the big change....whatever happened to that Montauk Monster??? LET THE SUMMER BEGIN!!
