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The south shore of Long Island is one of the grandest stretches of beaches along the U.S. coast. Extending from the wild bluff coast of Montauk Point to Coney Island in New York City, one can find just about every recreational experience that a coastal area has to offer. Both interesting and significant, this long strand runs roughly east-west as opposed to most East Coast beaches which trend north to south. This shields the south shore beaches from the cold Labrador currents allowing the water to warm up nicely here during the summer compared to points north. Also, there is usually an ocean swell that rolls in from the south, making for good body surfing on most beaches and board surfing at a few, especially Ditch Plains Beach.

Montauk Point is land's end on the south fork of Long Island; it is characterized by rolling hills and wave-cut sea cliffs. The Montauk Light is a famous beacon that sits perched atop these high bluffs. It was commissioned to be built in 1796 by George Washington (a surveyor by trade), who reportedly predicted that it would last 200 years considering the shore erosion problem. He was right on the money as the bluffs have had to be stabilized in recent decades to stop this sentinel from slipping over the edge. Singer Billy Joel, a Montauk resident, sponsored a concert to raise money to protect this landmark; Dr. Beach was an invited guest, but unfortunately I was overseas on a trip that summer.

The Montauk area is best known for its peace and quiet; it is a place where one has the sense of being close to the end of the world. These clean, deep waters are also a fisherman's paradise either through surfcasting off the bulkworks at Montauk Light or from pleasure boats just offshore. Cod and flounder can be caught year-round, but the real action starts with the migratory schools of striped bass, sea trout and bluefish. When a big school of five- to seven-pound bluefish get into a feeding frenzy, I don't even bother to bait my hook as they will strike anything with a vengeance. Upon landing these fighting fish into the boat, some people swat them a few times with a billy club to slow them down and use gloves to remove the hook; the big ones can easily take your fingers off if you are not careful. Still bigger game lurks off this rocky headland in the form of the great white shark. Over one thousand-pound great whites have been hooked just offshore, and there are sea stories about these big, powerful sea monsters dragging the boats around (reminiscent of "Jaws").

Much of the shoreline is cliff and rock, so beaches tend to be pockets of sand (pocket beaches). The longest strand beach is located at Hither Hills State Park. This is a vast area of open, undeveloped land to explore, but be wary of Lyme ticks since the grassy meadows are overstocked with deer. The best surfing beach north of Cape Hatteras is Ditch Plains Beach. While not that attractive as a beach per se, offshore rocks cause the waves to wrap around, providing a pipeline to surf on big swell wave days.

The best beaches are found in the Hamptons, notably world famous East Hampton, Southampton and Westhampton beaches. The sandy beaches become much wider, at places over a hundred yards wide, and extend for miles and miles. Only the inlets of Shinnecock and Moriches separate the barrier beaches. This chain of islands extends from Southampton all the way along the south shore of Long Island to Coney Island in New York City. The East Hampton beaches are the least developed, but there are no high-rise hotels or condominiums anywhere in the fashionable Hamptons. East Hampton's Main Beach is the Overall Best Beach in the Northeast as this area epitomizes the perfect blend of nature and the built environment. This is partly due to the vast wealth of the summertime residents; more importantly, the beaches are protected by a conservation easement dating back over 300 years which prevents unwise development.

Mansions for the rich and famous, such as fashion magnate Calvin Klein and movie producer Steven Spielberg, grace these wide beaches and high sand dunes colonized with American beach grass. But it is Wall Street that virtually built the Hamptons, with hundreds of brokers/investment bankers from Manhattan owning summer places there. During the roaring '90s, some of these Wall Street wizards are bringing home tens of millions per year, so their summer homes and gardens are kept in immaculate condition. Old oak trees and high hedges along the quaint town roads hide the summer mansions and private clubs of people who travel in Lear jets and helicopters.

Southampton boasts the best hotels and inns, while the Village of Quogue wants to remain unknown to tourists as the same summer people return year after year to their quiet seaside resort. The Hamptons were settled by the English in the late 1600s, and idyllic windmills and duck ponds really make for a wonderful setting, except that the main streets with their expensive boutiques can be overwhelmed by traffic during peak summer weekends.

The world renown Hampton beaches are beautiful and uncluttered, but erosion has always been a concern for beachfront homeowners. Several winter northeasters in the last few years have cut back the big dunes and threatened houses, but these storms were nothing compared to the Great New England Hurricane of 1938 that virtually leveled the barrier beaches from Southampton to Westhampton Beach. It is hard to image the carnage that took place as the waves washed completely across these islands in most places, cutting a score of inlets through the barrier (two of which were subsequently stabilized as Shinnecock and Moriches Inlets).

One of the most problematic areas is along Dune Road in Westhampton Beach-the section just west of the last groin toward Moriches Inlet. This area has been pummeled by storms through the ages, with inlets cut through this barrier section in 1938, the 1950s, 1980, and 1992. This is truly one of the major erosion "hot spots" along the East Coast, yet new development has occurred in recent years following a beach renourishment project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. This finger of sand with a few hundred houses has even incorporated to become the Village of Westhampton Beach Dunes. Clearly, some people have more money than brains or else they are counting fully on the government to bail them out as erosion and subsequent storm damage is inevitable.

Fire Island was put on the map by Johnny Carson (former host of "The Tonight Show") with his wisecracks about the gays that so freely frolic on its shores. Fire Island acquired such a reputation that many people not native to Long Island and New York City thought that the whole island was gay, while in fact only two of the 17 communities along this 32-mile long barrier island are of this persuasion. Fire Island Pines welcomes only the very well-heeled gays as attested to by the architectural wonders that have been constructed along the shore; these see-through houses provide great vistas of both the ocean and the bay (but also invite voyeurism). Cherry Grove is the other, longer-established gay community on the beach, with its famed "Ice Palace" on the bay side reachable by water taxi. In fact, all the communities and the developed areas within Fire Island National Seashore are reachable only by ferry or private boat as no cars are allowed on the island during the summer. This really makes Fire Island a special place for people who want to escape completely from mechanized travel and instead rely on an intricate system of boardwalks and the open beach to get around.

Fire Island National Seashore is a wonderful place to visit, especially the almost mysterious Sunken Forest. A boardwalk takes you over the large barrier dunes to the very top of the dense forest. All the tree branches and leaves have been pruned smooth by the salt spray, blown inland from the waves breaking on the ocean beach. So dense is the vegetation that I have been tempted to try to walk on top of the tree canopy, but, of course, common sense told me that, like clouds, it could not support my weight. The boardwalk then drops down precipitously into the wooded concavity - hence the name "Sunken Forest", which is not actually sunken relative to the overall barrier elevation.

The hardwood trees of American holly, sassafras, and shadbush are stunted, gnarled and sometimes twisted in their growth patterns, making this "enchanted forest" a real ecological curiosity. This maritime forest on Fire Island is a climax stand of trees, meaning that this area had to be stable for a long time (considering the dynamics and ever-changing nature of barrier islands) in order for ecological succession of species to occur. Once an agricultural field is abandoned, first come the grasses, followed by the pine trees, and finally the hardwoods. Our studies have shown that the Sunken Forest area on Fire Island has been stable for several hundred years, which allowed enough time for this climax forest to develop.

The presence of this unique forested area is related to the downdrift (westward) migration of Fire Island Inlet. The famed Fire Island Lighthouse on the island, another seashore treasure now open to the public, was built in 1858 at the west end of Fire Island at the time. This beacon no longer marks the waterway entrance between the islands as the entire length of Robert Moses State Park (about five miles) has accreted since this time. The downdrift migration of Fire Island Inlet and westward accretion of the island would have continued were it not for the building of the Democrat Point jetties in the 1950s and subsequent dredging of the inlet channel by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The currents during the changing of the tides are so swift that sailboats without motor power are not permitted. There have been many marine accidents so the Coast Guard is always racing to the scene of yet another incident at Fire Island Inlet (but usually not due to the Lighthouse being in the wrong location).

The December 1992 northeaster (locally called "The Storm from Hell") severely eroded the beach and dunes at Fire Island, toppling an entire row of houses in the western communities of Saltaire and Fair Harbor. This was the worst winter storm since the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962, which caused damage from Maine to north Florida with the worst devastation along the New Jersey coast. Winter northeasters blow from the northeast direction, generating very strong longshore (termed littoral) currents along these northeast-southwest trending beaches. Erosion can rapidly occur, and frequently scarps develop in the beach face, wherein the beach is vertically cut and drops off by several to over 6 feet. For lovers who stroll on cloudy nights, it can be quite a surprise to tumble over these big dropoffs into the swash below.

Following storms, you might notice that the eroded beach on Fire Island is often characterized by black sand with a reddish sheen. The first thought that people often have is that there has been a tanker accident, and the beaches are polluted with oil that washed in during the night. Actually, the blackened sand is natural. It is an erosional concentration of heavy mineral sands (such as magnetite, ilmenite, hornblende, and garnet); the lighter and more easily eroded quartz grains get washed away and pulled offshore to build the sand bars. Using a magnifying glass, you can examine the sand grains in more detail; the red ones are garnet - the precious mineral used for rings and necklaces, except that these grains are obviously too small for any commercial value beyond use as sandpaper.

You may also find beach glass along the beach; pieces of ordinary glass of various colors that have been rocked and rolled in the surf zone for quite some time until all the jagged edges have been polished smooth. Some people like to collect these colorful fragments along with the many types of shells and sand (see Beachcombing and Sand Collecting). I have witnessed some people trying to create beach glass by breaking bottles on the beach; this pollution can make the beach hazardous since it takes years for these objects to be ground down to size.

Jones Beach State Park is the most popular and heavily visited beach on the East Coast and probably the nation (although Venice Beach in California has a year-round crowd of eclectic beachgoers and sidewalk clowns). It is estimated that over six million people per year visit Jones Beach, and it seems like everyone is there on a good weekend day as the towels on the beach nearly touch end-to-end and side-to-side so that from the air, the beach looks like a patchwork quilt. Surprisingly, the people who frequent Jones Beach State Park like it that way; this is truly a touchy-feely beach, but it will never rank high in my ratings as the most popular beaches are rarely the best beaches.

Another beach that must be mentioned along this long string of barrier beaches from Southampton westward is Coney Island. The sand was historically the finest and whitest at this end of the line of the south shore; the sand originated and traveled along the shore from Montauk Point with time and tide over thousands of years to reach Coney Island. Only the most durable beach material (mostly white, sand-size quartz grains) were left, with the other grains of different mineral composition ground down to powder and flushed offshore from the high-energy, oceanic beaches of the south shore. Coney Island's beach was nourished by pumping sand onshore following the 1992 northeaster that caused considerable damage, particularly at the Sea Gate area. The beach sand has been changed, but the good news is that the beach is back. The bad news is that Coney Island - once one of the most famous beaches in the United States with its legendary amusement park (the Cyclone roller coaster), boardwalk, and Nathan's hot dogs - is unlikely to ever regain its former glory because of city crime and water pollution concerns. Coney Island, like so many other beach resorts of yesteryear, had its day in the sun.

New York State Division of Tourism
P.O. Box 2603
Albany, NY 12220-0603
(800) CALL-NYS

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