Jia J.
Yelp
Apparently "everyone knows" that the scenic beauty of Fire Island is squandered on Long Island Trash. Well, I didn't know, and none of my friends even hinted at it before I made the long haul out there.
Heart thumping at the prospect of spending time on a natural reserve of the U.S. National Park Service, I got up at 5:45 a.m. with a few good friends, took the 7:10 a.m. LIRR ($21.50 round trip - the 50-cent online discount requires several days
advanced planning so your tickets can arrive via snail mail) to Babylon. From there, we transferred to a Bay Shore train. They didn't announce the stop, so we missed our destination. Luckily, we caught the opposite train by dashing across the tracks in the sketchiest way. From Bayshore, we took David's car service ($4-see separate review) to the ferry. Hoovered up a dozen clams at Nicky's Clam Bar (separate review), then hopped aboard for a 30 minute ferry ride ($17 round trip) out to Fair Harbor, Fire Island.
This "barefoot community" was a place unlike any other. There really were no cars or motorized vehicles of any sort. Girls towed wagons loaded with Vera Bradley bags and 30-pack boxes of Bud Light. One guy wheeled a bunch of potted flowers and his young son at the same time. Everyone had an antique beach cruiser; no one locked anything. Endless wooden boardwalks took us straight past people's residences and rentals to the intimidatingly unspoilt beach, where swimming was constrained to 50-yard portions of water flagged off between lifeguard chairs. This was just as well, because the waves were sometimes double overhead, and the water was chilly enough to cause palpitations even in a confident swimmer.
It was HOT on the sand, and we all managed to get burnt despite 90+ SPF sunscreen, black t-shirts, and umbrellas. There was one weird local grocery store charging 99 cents for a big bottle of flavored seltzer water but also 99 cents per shrivelled purple fig. The "town" was run by a few old folks, and a lot of local teens [girls with short shorts and oversized tees...skinny, self-conscious looking errand boys with baskets on their rusty bikes]. The girl working at Unfriendly's Ice Cream next door said simply that she didn't know where the public facilities were, and offered no further assistance. She may have been telling the truth, because we had to ask at least seven people before finally finding the wooden structure on a street that we only detected because we saw someone whizzing by on a bike. By the way, they completely locked the place down at 5 p.m., when the lifeguards also disappeared, leaving people to sink or swim.
To sample the nightlife, my gut said to walk 15 minutes due West towards Kismet (the word means "destiny," for crying out loud), but my friend insisted that Ocean Beach was the spot that she heard was really going off. We walked into the labirynth of boardwalks through what looked just like the Others' compound from LOST, and were soon deposited onto an unmarked sand path bordered by creepy green reeds. The full moon came out, and a wild deer peeped out from the dunes as butterflies darted about. This was the only redeemable part to staying here past sunset.
Finally, we hung a left (North) and ran right into the Ocean Beach strip. It was like Provincetown but with trashy heterosexuals...it was Family Guy meets Jersey Shore (and I haven't even seen the show, but I'm pretty sure this is what it is like)...Pleasantville met Stepford met the Twilight Zone...it was just plain bloody awful.
After blowing dough on a burger and two frozen margs at Bocce Beach Restaurant (separate review) and listening to two douchbags "from the city" talk about how they "don't fuck ugly chicks" and how there were "no hot chicks to fuck," we ran, not walked, to the ferry station just as the last ride was departing. A couple other non-locals were shrieking, "I will NEVER come back here again!" A Holocaust-style (sorry) ride with David's car service, an hour wait at the Bay Shore LIRR station where there was no bathroom, an hour and a half long train ride to Jamaica, a transfer, and another transfer due to a fight between two assholes that brought the cops delivered me to the underground oven of Penn Station at 2 a.m. A ride on the A-train and a desperate crosstown cab trip brought me home just past 3 a.m....but anything was better than staying to witness the freakshow on the island.
The moral is: if you want nature, stick to nature, especially in this place, where the social scene is a desecration of any merits that Fire Island might actually have. Sadly, even on this 26-mile preserve, there seemed to be more "look how off the beaten path we are" development than untouched peace and quiet. Still, I MAY come back here in the fall or winter strictly to camp and check out the Sunken Forest. At least then, the eerie houses will be empty of cultish vacationers and fast-talking brats extorting $7 ice cream cones from their guardians.
