Watch Hill

I like the double-decker LIRR trains. We took one on the Montauk line to Patchogue on Saturday, where we caught the Davis Park ferry to Watch Hill on Fire Island. The train, from Flatbush Avenue, with a switch at Jamaica, took about 90 minutes. The ferry terminal was a very short walk from the train station in Patchogue, and the boat took about 45 minutes to cross over Great South Bay. Watch Hill is next to the Otis Pike Wilderness Area, the smallest wilderness area in the National Park Service portfolio. These wilderness dunes were jumping with blood-suckers and I am still scratching from our brief foray into the scrub. The beach, of course, was bug-free, and lovely; it doesn’t take much of a walk to have a big swath of oceanfront to your self, even on the Fourth. Watch Hill has a 180-boat marina, which was full; I thought it odd that many of the boaters tied up, put their chairs on the dock, and sat next to their boats all day. Some of them even brought kiddie pools.

I found this on a path:A Matthew (from the ancient Hebrew for "gift of god") lost his halo. It had to happen sooner or later, kid.

I found this in the dunes: