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June 26, 1997 - Retracing Our Montauk Steps6A • The Suffolk Times • June 26, 1997 Retracing Our Montauk Steps This is being written from Site I7 at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk. The sun is out bright after a starry night with cool temperatures that make the air re- freshing. With all these factors under our belt and an early rise, Barbara and I decid- ed to revisit an old campsite of ours on the shore of nearby Napeague Bay. When we were first married and this area was little known, we camped on that lonely stretch of beach. We trailered a lit- tle old boat loaded down with a borrowed tent, alcohol stove, sleeping bags and other parapherna- lia we would need for the long Labor Focus Day weekend. We selected a spot on about a mile up the Nature beach and an- N chored the boat in by pair knee -deep water Stoutenburg6 and proceeded to set up our tent. It was the ideal spot, with calm blue waters of the bay only a few feet from our tent door and as a backdrop the open spaces of the walking dunes. Looking back, I doubt now if we realized how lucky we were. Today we left our pickup at the end of Napeague Harbor Road, the same spot we'd left our vehicle some 46 years before, but today rather than travel by boat we walked up the beach. Actually, little about the area has changed, for it is now protect- ed by the state park system. There seems to be a narrower beach that's overrun with vehicle tracks, and the famous tall radio towers to the south that were a landmark have now been reduced to one. Of course, there are more houses around the south and to the west, but overall the area has remained quite desolate, wild and wonder- ful, giving you a feeling of open space that few places on the island can still claim. As we strolled northward, we could see beach plum bushes and dune grass trying their best to hold the dunes from being blown away by the harsh north winter winds and the relentless southwest sum- mer winds. Least terns greeted us as we walked along the rust - colored sand that charac- terizes this lower area. These dainty tems, along with common and roseate terns, nest out on a sandy spit at the mouth of the bay. Every once in a while one would hes- itate from its pumping flight to hover, then drop in a series of aligning beats and when about six feet above the water would fold its wings and plunge for a meal. They were feeding on sand eels. Cormorants were also fishing farther out in the bay, their bodies half -sub- merged and their snake- like necks protruding from their black bodies. They nest to the north, on the west side of Gardiners Island, which we could see lying low in the distance. We also saw footprints of a fox in the wet sand as we steadily moved along the now - narrow beach. Barbara's keen nose later would smell the fox. His unmis- takable odor is much like that of a skunk. Perhaps it was the spot where he found a discarded fish along the shore when he was patrolling and took it up into the bushes to eat and therefore concentrat- ed his odor in that area. There were no land- marks to mark our early campsite. Too many years had passed since that Labor Day weekend. The only thing I remem- ber was that there was a pipe lying in the water, a relic of when fishing shacks once ringed the bay. At one place we found overbaked bricks, throwaways of the brick industry that were proba- bly picked up for nothing and used by the fishermen to make tem- porary fireplaces on the beach. They knew nothing lasts forever on sandy beaches and therefore the bricks were expendable. The fishermen probably hauled seine for bunkers that often came into these big bays and were caught by the millions. There are still remnants of an old factory chimney that marked a fish processing plant across the bay. This was the area called Promised Land, where bunker fish were brought to be made into fish meal. They say it got its name because the peo- ple living nearby said the processing of the fish "smelled to high heaven," thus Promised Land. About three - quarters of our way along the beach I saw the pipe I remembered from long ago. It was made of cast iron and there- A loaded -down party boat called the Pelican had capsized just off Montauk Point with a heavy loss of life. Ironically a newspaper man had gone to Montauk to write a story about party boat fishing off this famous point and had pho- tographed the Pelican as it left the dock, with all its happy fisher- men waving. On a much brighter note we had one of the most memorable weekends our young marriage could remember. In the evening the sun would set in the west over the bay. We'd sit by our campfire for then there were no regu- lations about fires and later at night the water would literally lap at our front door and set us off to an incredible sleep. It is memories of times like this that make life worth- while. Still walking northward we could see patches of pink on the dunes ahead of us and by using my binoculars I could see the wild salt spray rose cov- ering the entire dune. To the left of that we spotted signs through the binocu- lars. They were signs announcing the nesting area of the endangered piping plover and least tems. Through the efforts of many dedicated peo- ple, these nesting sites have been found through- out all of Long Island and roped off with appropri- ate warnings telling why we should give these birds a wide berth. They are both endangered species and nest on the ground. Beach traffic is disastrous to them. Through volunteer efforts and the cooper- ation of the public these once "on the decline" beach nesters are now making a comeback and we should all take our hats off to those dedicated individuals who have worked so hard to protect them. At one point we noticed the bay had broken through the dune into the walking dunes area and in so doing created a small sand spit jutting out into the bay. A lone bird stood like a sentinel there — a willet, a large shore bird with a heavy long bill. At first it was hard to distinguish what kind of bird it was for there were no char- acteristic markings, but once in flight its white rump and bold white wing markings gave it away easily as a willet. It flew up as we approached and was back again when we returned. Willets nest in the high ground around some of our beaches. Evidently this one nested somewhere along the bay edge. The best place to see this showy, often- times noisy, shore bird is along Dune Road in Westhampton. It, like the oyster- catcher that nests along our bays but clos- er to the water's edge, is a noisy bird when disturbed. I love to hear them for their call reminds me of lonely desolate beaches and glaring sun. Our 7 o'clock walk was one down memory lane. We stopped once to take a picture of the two of us, using the self timer on the camera. If you ever use this gadget, you laugh as we did running to get back into the picture so that we'd have a memento of that wonderful spot that has- n't changed much through the years. Suffolk Times photo by Paul Stoutenburgh THE NOISY WILLET —While most shore birds are in the tundra far to the north of us, some nest locally: the noisy oyster- catcher, the sparrow -sized spotted sandpiper, the robin -sized willet and the endangered piping plover. All nest on the edge of our bays, most- ly on the south shore and on the islands of the East End. a acct a UUUA nallia 75 Years Ago June 23, 1922 1 Scream, You Scream..: An ice cream parlor has been the cry of Greenport Village for many a year. This cry, in a few days, will be satisfied for Mrs. Chester Ketcham will serve you with delicious ice cream at the store of Mrs. W. H. Wiggins. "All things come to them that wait." For Sale: 30 -foot launch, 12 horsepower engine, all in good condition. $350. Sweet's Ship Yard, Greenport. 40 -foot Cruiser, now in commission, fully equipped, sleep- ing quarters for five; can be seen at Preston's dock, foot of Main Street, Greenport. Price $5,500. Ford Racing Car, cut very low. Won more than $250 at Riverhead Races. Great bargain, $150. George Barr, Greenport. 50 Years Ago June 27, 1947 Hospital Plans Change: Plans for the new hospital to be built in Riverhead have been redrawn to bring costs within the range of the building fund raised by the Riverhead Hospital Association. The revision leaves unchanged at 64 beds the capacity of the proposed hospital, which is to be erected on the northeast corner plot at the intersection of County Route 58 and Roanoke Avenue. However, several fore lived through the rust that would have done in a steel pipe lying in the salt water. It lay broken and perhaps its open end made a palace for some crab or dogfish. Few who read this will remember that Labor Day weekend 46 years ago, but if you lived in Montauk you surely would for that fatal weekend Montauk hit the headlines of the New York papers. Our introduction to this disastrous weekend came by way of sirens screaming from across the bay heading toward Montauk. staff rooms and other facilities which are not considered absolutely necessary would be eliminated; a flat roof would be substituted for the gable roof originally planned and ceil- ing heights would be reduced. 25 Years Ago June 29, 1972 Expressway to Mattituck: Heaven forfend! The "final" addition of 2.1 miles of roadway brought the Long Island Expressway to Riverhead yesterday but it is only semi -final as far as the East End is concerned because anoth- er "final" link to Mattituck is on the drawing board, and where it will end, nobody knows. The extension had been requested by the county Board of Supervisors in 1968 when it seemed like a golden opportunity to bring more people and business to the dead -end North Fork. This reasoning has lost some of its appeal as the population has mounted from sheer disenchantment with growth to the west of the island and from easier accessibility to the East End by the LIE as far as Calverton. Police Report: A bird was taken sometime during the past week from the terrace of Sydney Steiber, Lake Drive. The bird was part of a statuary, "Woman with Dog and Bird" valued at $800. It is about 10 inches high and modern in style. Police are investigating the theft.