ZOMG we kayaked!
Let me start by saying that this was a big amazing adventure and I am so glad to share it with you guize! But first we need a little geology lesson.
Long Island was formed at the end of the last Ice Age, and is the product of glacial outwash. This means that the North Shore is heavily wooded hills with stony beaches, the center is mostly flat grassland, and the South Shore is flat, grassy marshland. Off the South Shore Coast are several narrow barrier islands, some habitable, some dedicated to Mother Nature, and one dedicated to Glitter and Unicorns. This is another post for another day. Here’s a preview of that one.
Oh, sit down – at least they all have pants on.
Anyway, buried under all this is a massive freshwater aquifer, which supplies water for lawns and ice for martinis and suds for the little shell-shaped dish you soak your beleaguered cuticles in.
There are also microclimates – the North Shore has more severe hot and cold weather because there is little ocean breeze, and since the center of the Island is home to more flat open space, it also gets a bit of the tundra / desert thing. The South Shore is more stable – the ocean has a moderating effect on the weather. Except for hurricanes, which tend to kill us in droves and send lacquered hausfraus fleeing from their Massapequa splanches in a scrum of Subaru wagons and a cloud of Ellnet hairspray.
Lesson Finis.
I grew up on the North Shore, and did more than my fair share of hiking, sailing and Spooky Old Mansion Trespassing. I loved every minute of it and it’s in my bones. Now it was time for us to explore the South Shore Marshes.
And we did – by kayak! We rented kayaks from a local place in Oceanside, and with the help of a guide, did an afternoon exploration.
Now, I’ve kayaked before. But it was the North Shore method, where you launch at the opening of an estuary in Kings Park – and it’s timed with the tides. You only have to paddle to steer. At the end, you are dumped out into a pond and a van drives you back to your car. I wouldn’t call it kayaking luxe, but it wasn’t roughing it.
This was a workout, and Cap’n was giving me the side-eye as we tried to keep up with our chirpy twink tourguide. We had also skipped breakfast, which I don’t recommend. When I whipped out a wee bag of Oreos, Cap’n gave chase as I stuffed them in, yelling “Give me a goddam cookie or you’re off to David Bowie’s locker!” He know’s it’s Davy Jones’ locker, but I know it’s a cop thing to yell distracting things while chasing a perp. I got away.
What did we see?
The marshland is a maze of mixed salt and fresh water, – mostly salt, where we were. which creates an ecosystem all its own. The bright green marsh grass covers muddy land that’s about 3 to 4 feet out of the water. “The sides of these banks are covered with holes full of crabs and snakes!” yelled our guide, and Cap’n muttered to me “Just like that bar on 17th street you dragged me to.”
So, I decided to point out fish and birds. We saw several osprey, and one was feeding her babies with a fish. There were cormorants, egrets, and blue herons. The fish seemed to be mostly nondescript silvery things, but there were a lot and they were pretty. There were some enormous American robins. Also, some really pretty Red-winged blackbirds were making a noise that sounded like “Gaga”. This made us all laugh.
Our guide took us by a few islands big enough to support trees, and a half-submerged Prohibition-era wreck which may have been used to smuggle rum to and from the mainland during the 1920s or ’30s.
Our videography was poor, so I leave you with the – aptly named – Stacey Sweet and her adorable Marine Biologist sidekick to provide a videologue of what it looks like.
Less than an hour from NYC, folks.