It’s been hovering at 70 degrees on our sandy shore at the City by the Sea, Long Beach, NY. The boardwalk was walked, jogged, biked and just enjoyed.

The surf was low, the sand berm high. Both were surfed and all was well…it seemed.

Yes, 70s in November. Might have nothing to do with global warming, er, “climate change.” But if it does we’re really enjoying the sunny ride to “environmental adjustment.” As the man said passing the fiftieth floor from a fall from the hundredth, “So far, so good.” Yes, we’re delighting in the air blowing through our hair as we hurtle down to an inconvenient sidewalk.

Meanwhile off-shore, a threatened Port Ambrose liquid natural gas project looms, courtesy, Liberty Natural Gas. Most Long Beach residents pan the idea, mostly for ecological concerns and with good reason. Among the touted advantages for the project are cheaper natural gas prices for Long Island and the old reliable…jobs.

But why continue to do anything that encourages reliance on fossil fuels and dampens enthusiasm for renewables? I think we basically have a substance abuse problem here on planet Earth. The substance, fossil fuel. We just can’t get off the teat. We know it but can’t seem to really get real with it. We’re something like St. Augustine, “Lord make me chaste, but not yet.” And jobs? Jobs are supposedly one of the benefits of the Keystone Pipeline too. Is a man counted as fully employed when the construction project he’s working on is his own gallows?

What very sour, no, bitter thoughts to bring to such fine, warm, sunny days.

There really was a sweet side though. The wind-blowing-through-your-hair side. The kids were doing some sand-surfing and disc-sliding on this temporary storm berm erected just before recent hurricane Joaquin threatened.

An Army Corps of Engineers project will make a permanent dune to help “mitigate” the sea surge in a one-hundred-year storm. You might recall the North Atlantic visited our Long Beach kitchens three years ago in the form of Sandy.

Yes, I gave you a side order of tangy stuff again. But we are preparing for a return of such storms: This from the City of Long Beach about the Corps of Engineer’s plan:

“The dunes in Long Beach would be 25 feet wide, rising to a height of 14 feet in front of the boardwalk. They would slope down to a 40-foot-wide berm at an elevation of 9 feet, and a 130-foot-wide berm 2 feet lower that would slope down to the waterline. The project would include 31 dune crossovers in Long Beach alone.” Sounds like a formidable mitigation plan.

Back to the sweet:

The ocean was very calm but that didn’t stop the determined surfers. Some youngsters found even the two-foot surf doable.

Fisherman fished, lovers loved and tanners tanned.

Some sat and read their books or tablets or just…sat.

Some even worked up the mettle to take a dip into the 60 degree sea. Not me. I’m just here to record cold-water dips. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Some just enjoyed the setting sun the best way they knew how…in their Now.

Be well,

Leebythesea