Sunday mornings usually start with the questions "do you still want to go?" and, "do we have time to pick up coffee?"
We roll out of bed and groggily wash up, throw on our bathing suits, and toss a the usuals into our sand filled back packs: a canteen, wireless speaker that we are unsure if we recharged since the last trip, sunscreen, beach towels and blankets and some post swim undies. Before heading out the door we grab our new love, our sun-shielding beach umbrella and lock the door behind us.
The walk to the ferry terminal is a hurried one, and we often split up so that one person can grab breakfast and the other can hop on the line and purchase tickets from the app. Since the NYC Ferry started a new route directly from lower Manhattan to the Rockaways, we have made our way to the beach nearly every weekend there was sun.
On foot, we zip past the quiet streets of the Financial District and Wall Street which always has a few early rising tourists wandering about. The lines are always long, whether its the 7:30am, 8:30am, or 10am boat we want to catch, but eventually we a shuffled on board and can settle in for the hour long ride ahead.
Before our sleepy eyes have fully awakened, we see the city shrink behind us and we are in the middle of the bay, passing under bridges and coastlines of boroughs.
Minutes after docking we have walked the width of the Rockaway peninsula, and are finally faced with the ocean. Minutes after that we have found the spot that we'll claim as our own for the morning and better part of the afternoon, layout blankets and erect our umbrella, and lie down.
As the day goes on I attempt to take a nap, but mostly just people watch and listen to the waves. I watch the shadow of our umbrella move across the sand and the wave get closer and closer to our chosen spot. Adham intermittently rises from his blanket to jump into the water, and promptly after I badger him to put on more SPF.
At some point I will put my feet in the water and maybe make it waist deep before I decide it's too cold. It will be the end of August before I am comfortable with the temperature.
We stave off hunger for as long as possible before heading to Caracas, and arepas bar further down the brand new boardwalk. Like most everything worthwhile in New York there is a line wrapped around the restaurant. With few options and lots of determination we get on our second line of the day and wait.
After eating and (usually) drinking we check our phones for the next ferry and make our way back to the bay-side of the peninsula, only mildly heat exhausted. We know by the time we make it back to the city we'll have our second wind and can do what we like with the reset of our weekend.
