Back on the Beach

At last, the long and harsh Rockaway winter is over … well, sort of. While lifeguards are back on the beach, it seems the weather hasn’t caught on that it’s supposed to be warm yet. It doesn’t look like the beach will meet summer-weather standards at all this week. To be fair, it was sunny on Memorial Day (although still chilly), but other than that it’s rain, clouds, and low temperatures.

Needless to say, this hasn’t stopped people from coming down to the beach. Memorial Day was unsurprisingly crowded, and I’ll admit, it was a pretty great beach day all through the morning. The water, however, is still only around 50 degrees, which I personally would classify as polar-level temperatures. I was genuinely shocked to see anyone stay in the water for more than five minutes — and then Tuesday, one man floated around for almost an hour. He must’ve been blue when he finally came out of the ocean. It only took dipping my toes in at the shoreline for me to decide I wouldn’t be going in the water by choice for at least another week.

If you’ve ever sat on a lifeguard chair for a while, you know those ten feet up from the ground make a world of a difference in temperature, especially on a breezy afternoon. My fellow lifeguards and I have been sitting in the chairs swathed in an exorbitant amount of orange clothes. On Tuesday, I sported two pairs of sweatpants, three parkas, two sweatshirts, and fuzzy socks. I might as well have just worn an orange snowsuit.

With rock jetty construction wrapped up across the peninsula, it looks like every shack will be at least partially open this summer for the first time in four years. 117 Shack, which was completely closed last year, hasn’t opened yet but is expected to soon. It looks like some sort of construction is still going on by Beach 116th, but overall, the beach looks like it’s ready to welcome back visitors.

It’s hard to say this early on just how many beaches will end up opening this summer, but not much has changed in the past few years — it’s all going to depend on how short we are on lifeguards. As returning guards continue to pass their recertification tests and the new guards finish up the course, the beach will begin filling out. But even then, it won’t be feasible for every beach that should have lifeguards to have them — there just aren’t enough of us, unfortunately.

Hopefully, we get a good number of guards back before the true summer weather kicks in and the beach chaos returns in full force. While I’m no fan of the cold, it is nice to enjoy a slow week before the crowds start coming down. I can already picture the weekly, if not daily, senior skip day kids that will show up at the beach by mid-June with nothing but a towel, a Four Loko, and a dream on Beach 97th Street.