When my cousins and I were little, our grandpa or one of our parents would shuttle us over to Great Gun, the beach at the end of Fire Island, N.Y., or to the very tip of Westhampton Beach on the other side of the Moriches Inlet. We would drop anchor in a cove on the bay side of the dunes and either stay there and wade in the water or climb the white sand dunes to the ocean side and play wiffle ball. For me, these trips always ended in third degree burns. One time I ripped the bottom of my foot open on a rusty boardwalk nail. I have nothing but good memories from these trips.
During Superstorm Sandy, the Moriches Inlet, which separates Fire Island and Westhampton Beach, was doubled in size—so much so that we could see the ocean waves from our home on the other side of the bay. Our cove was washed out to shore, and the entire area had to be rebuilt by the Army Corps of Engineers. This past weekend, I took my first trip out to the inlet to see the progress. Though it’s sad that so much of the landscape has changed, you can see in the video above that a tremendous amount of repair work was done, and it looks beautiful.
Here’s a look at the inlet post-Sandy:
And another:
And some photos:
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