The Girls Go to Mars

To get the candy bars.

Coming back on the plane from a long weekend in LA that included a beautiful day of surfing with my bud Andy, i decided i really wanted to go camping and surfing out here on the east coast before cold weather took back over. On lovely lady Atlantic. In New York. Yeah.

So did some checking around, pulled the tent and sleeping bag we used for Spanish camp outta the closet, and wrangled my roomies into coming along for the weekend.

While originally i had wanted to go out to Montauk (zoom out to see where it is. it's so pretty there.), we decided to go, instead to Fire Island.

No cars are allowed on Fire Island. A soft white sand beach and a thin strip of cute lumpy land cobbled with dunes separates the placid waters of Long Island's Great South Bay from the pummeling coastal waves of the Atlantic. Most people come to the island for the day to swim. Camping is very limited -- 3 sites allowed from the north check point, 4 from the south. It is hike-in/carry-out camping, with the closest site about 2 miles down through dunes or over sand from the ranger's station.

We all decided we would go a few days before the weekend. At that time, since neither roomie had surfed before, we had planned to take a 7am surf lesson on Sunday morning offered by one of the local surf shops. At work on Friday, I called to confirm that the lesson was on. It was. But stopping to get some wine on our way out of town Saturday, I decided to check back again to make sure things were a go, and was told lessons were cancelled due to the rip tide. Blast! .Ophelia.

While rip tides are bad news for beginners, they fill the dreams of hardcore surfers. No teaching would be happening the next morning because all the instructors would be out in the water.

Though this was really sucky news, we decided to stick with our plans.

We got to Fire Island National Park, and checked in with the gentle volunteer ranger, who explained to us a bunch of things that, in choosing to camp, we need to know about. As he thoroughally explained the potential hazards and considerations we had ahead, he wrote down each item on our camp form: "Mosquitos." "Tics." "Poison ivy." "No cutting grasses..." The list went on, with an friendly yet intense reverence and seriousness given to each consideration mentioned and listed. Being happy "Grizzly bears," "Sharks," "Snakes," and "Verbose republicans" were not among the cautions listed, we accepted the list, and were told we could camp anywhere past a certain point behind the first dune off the beach. "You are basically going to be in the middle of nowhere," the ranger stated, and then told us what to do in case of an emergency. Ok. We were ready.

We thanked him, and got back in the Philmobile to take care of some biz. Stopped back in town to get some non-DEETed bug spray (decided on DEET-filled. in the end, the extra toxins were probably a real good choice), checked into the surf shop to make sure no one might reconsider teaching the next morning (nope), or rent us stuff (nope), and headed back to park, gear up, and begin our treck.

After first planning to pitch camp two miles in, we were moved by the savagely mosquito-infested dunes to quickly change our plans near the two mile point, and hike in four miles down the beach to get to a place where Phil knew of a clearing that he thought might house less of the bird-sized, blood-sucking swarmers.

After a long and increasingly plodding hike along the coast and past the last randomly sunning mahoganied bear nudist, we decided to sit and rest. Facing out at the ocean, sun high and fierce overhead, we dropped our jugs of water, tents, and backpacks, and plopped down upon them to stare out in silence together over the endless water. Huge waves built and quickly broke with brutal downward force in the distance, and directly upon the shoreline, assembly-lined monsters rolling in three times faster than any surf I've seen. CCCRASH! CRAAASH!! CCRRAAAASH!! pssss (sea spray). Just pummeling. We sat under a brilliantly insistent beach sun and just watched. I like my room mates.

After some minutes of very lost-at-sea feeling decompression, we strapped on our supplies and started back, moving from the higher loose sand to the somewhat tighter pack and frequent sea spray near the shore, where we combined our walking with occasional quick scampers up the beach to escape from the frothing Ophelia-bourne runaway wakes. Sideways-running spastic ghost crabs darted from our path like stuck computer cursors, scurrying transparently out of dark holes to slide under delicately Sodona-colored wave-smoothed rocks.

We rested once more, and eventually reached the spot. No such luck with the clearing. Mosquitos undeniably ruled the land. And Ophelia, we clearly saw, ruled the water. We knew we would not fare well with either at night, so we chose to break one of the rules, and camp illegally on the sand. When the last sun bathers packed up and left for the last ferry back to the Long Island mainland, we got to work setting up camp.

Fire Island is a national park. In walking in, once we passed the randomly strewn nudists, we had a good two mile stretch with no one around. Where we landed after passing camped, however, had a bit more life during the day. The Bay side of our campground featured a dock for people to boat in or ferry in and hang out at during the afternoon. A lifeguard is even on duty at the sparcely populated ocean-side beach during the day. At night, though, it was all us. Pretty awesome.

Seeing how randy the surf was on the way in, we considered the possibility that we might get swept out to sea in our tents as we slept when the tide came in at night. But, somehow, that seemed more appealing than the mosquitos waiting to blanket us as we set up camp in the dunes, and buzz in our sleepy ears on off-bites, so we took the risk. We pitched tents, made dinner, drank wine, watched the brilliant stars fill the sky, then went to bed to sleep the sleep of the shipwrecked travelers, far from home.

We were ok and dry in the morn.

Yeah, there was a rip tide, so no surfing was to be done the next day. This was probably for the best, because, the ocean, she was AAAAN-GRY! BIG, HUUUGE waves. And lots of WHAM! KSSSSHST!! crash. CRASHHH! (pssss.)

After the morning air warmed, Phil and i decided to go for a swim. While Phil got out well, ms. Ocean Atlantic would not let me past the breaks to swim at all. Not one bit.

Phil paddled around in deeper water and watched as, four times in a row, HUGE wave walls grew and broke right on top of me as i tried to work my way in, tearing me from my bobbing stance, throwing me backwards into the surf, dragging me head-first in upside down circles across the ocean floor, and holding me down in the calm lower waters as curling, foaming tongues of seething wake lapped towards the beach from above. i could kinda tell what it would be like to drown. Sorta like my vertigo: clear and peaceful and matter-of-fact. Not scary or frantic. Sounds dramatic, and, from what my roomie said, looked pretty awful, but was actually nice (which i do realize is probably not the best instinctual physicial response to perhaps drowning).

Uh, it literally tore my swimsuit off of me twice too. The lifeguard had to come get me out. i felt way wussy getting a lifeguard outta his chair for struggles encountered in the shallows, but it was only Phil and me swimming (well, trying to swim), so my sitch was pretty hard to miss seeing from the shore. An the ocean was seriously kicking my ass. Getting vigilante de plage dude's help was trickier than it sounds, though, cause his appearance coincided with one of my prime suit-losing moments. He called to me to try to stand up. In hearing this, my thoughts in response went something like this: "Hm. Risk drowning in the next wave, or emerge from the waters bottomless?" These are the good, simple questions nature whittles it all down to.

i still have sand in my hair. And up my nose. i also still have both pieces of my suit.

Right now, i am north of NYC in the city where the Clintons live. Lots of trees, hills, and stone fences. It's the kind of town that must take on an entirely different regal personality when the seasons turn. I can just feel the leaves struggling to hold back their bursting into fall colors, like gleeful kids dying to strip down to their swimming suits, and fling themselves into the lake. And, on this last day of summer, their wait has probably just about ended.

Anyone know much about Puerto Rico? Lemme know whatchu got.

Happy summer, yall.