Robert Moses State Park sprawls across the westernmost spit of Fire Island, where the Great South Bay narrows into Fire Island Inlet and ocean wind whips sand into stinging veils. You park beneath the causeway, then walk boardwalks that creak under your sneakers, past beach plum thickets releasing their tart perfume in summer. The beach itself unfolds in a long, uninterrupted ribbon—no boardwalk carnival here, just dune grass hissing in the breeze and the rhythmic crash of green-gray waves that drag pebbles and clamshells back into the foam.
“The only Fire Island beach accessible by car, where Atlantic wilderness meets a causeway thirty-three miles from midtown Manhattan.”
2008-05-17 Coney Island, Long Island 069 Long Beach, Robert Moses State Park
Surfers paddle out year-round near Field Five, their black wetsuits bobbing like seals as sets march in from the southeast. Families stake umbrellas closer to the bathhouse, where lifeguards scan the break and kids shriek as cold Atlantic water numbs their shins. In October the crowds thin, leaving you to hunt for moon snails and jingle shells while sanderlings race the tide's edge on toothpick legs.
Stay through sunset and the sky bruises purple over the bay side, silhouetting the striped tower of the Fire Island Lighthouse. The air smells of rockweed and diesel from the fishing boats motoring home through the inlet. You'll leave with salt drying stiff in your hair and sand wedged inside every seam, the city skyline a distant smudge across the water.
