Summer is baseball season. It’s a time for cheering on favorites, enjoying a Subway Series, and sometimes catching a doubleheader. This editor really can’t say how well her team swings a bat, and she has no business wearing a catcher’s mitt, but sometimes we, too, are capable of hitting home runs.
The August edition of Great South Bay News and the August 15 edition of Fire Island News are hitting newsstands simultaneously. Keep your eye out for both of them this week, because both are winners.
Operation SPLASH is our Great South Bay News cover story, and Joe Cook hit it out of the ballpark. Joe spent the day riding the waters with this team of volunteers on a retrofitted clam boat to get a feel for what they do. Reading the article makes you almost feel like you were out on the Great South Bay with them. Samantha Salerno, in the same spirit, gives her on-location account of the Maggie Fischer Great South Bay Cross Bay Swim. The photography of Rob Verbeck also puts the reader on location, be it an art fair in Bellport Village, or a day in Shorefront Park in Patchogue, enjoying the Great South Bay Music Festival. This is but a sampling of what this rich edition has to offer.
Across the Bay, we cover everything Fire Island in our mid-August edition of Fire Island News. In this edition, our cover artist is also our Behind the Dunes feature story, as we profile long-time mosaic craftsperson, Wendy Erdmann. Whether making murals on retaining walls, assembling custom-tile backsplashes in Fire Island kitchens, or selling fanciful platters and mirrors adorned with mermaids, sea creatures, or renditions of the iconic Fire Island Lighthouse, Wendy has been a fixture defining Fire Island Homes and spaces for decades. We also cover other high points over these past two weeks, including the Tunnels to Towers 5K race in Ocean Beach, the 47th Annual Fundraiser of Lambda Legal in Fire Island Pines, and the 2025 Fire Island Lifeguard Tournament. There is something for everyone in this edition. We even have a story about a most unusual guest paying a visit to Atlantique.
Summer on Fire Island and along the Great South Bay is about fun, drama, and a healthy dose of good sportsmanship. You will find all of it here in these two sister newspapers.
