Beach Patrol

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. - Not much about how ocean lifeguards protect swimmers has changed since the late 19th century, when the country's first beach patrol was born on the Jersey Shore. For Sea Isle City patrol captain Renny Steele, it has been 40 seasons of watching with a keen eye, then jumping into action - and training others to do the same. There's the basic equipment: the ubiquitous lifesaving boat and missile-shaped floats called rescue "cans. " But for the amount of time it's in use, the prosaic guard stand - the power center of any swimming beach - is his patrol's most important tool.

This story has been updated to correct the species of shark caught. A South Jersey man pulled a seven-foot sand tiger shark from the waters just off the shore of Ocean City, N.J., Wednesday evening. Just in time for Shark Week. The man, whom beach regulars know only as "Shark Tony," landed the seven-foot-long catch after hooking it from a kayak and paddling back to the beach near the 59th Street Pier. Mark Miedama, who worked as a member of the Ocean City beach patrol this summer, was sitting on the sand with friends about 7:30 when he noticed Shark Tony struggling with a big catch.

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. - Not much about how ocean lifeguards protect swimmers has changed since the late 19th century when the country's first beach patrol was born on the Jersey Shore. For Sea Isle City patrol captain Renny Steele, it's been 40 seasons of watching with a keen eye, then jumping into action - and training others to do the same. There's the basic equipment: the ubiquitous lifesaving boat and missile-shaped floats called rescue "cans. " But for the amount of time it's in use, the prosaic guard stand - the power center of any swimming beach - is his patrol's most important tool.

Maybe those cooler-than-usual weekends kept some swimmers out of the ocean. Perhaps lifeguards' staggered shifts helped. Or maybe not as many bad storms materialized as expected. Whatever the reasons, climatic or human, beach patrols up and down the Jersey Shore yesterday agreed: The Summer of 1996, when compared with the 1995 vacation season, was as safe as a stroll on the beach for Jersey Shore swimmers. Three people drowned while vacationing at the Shore this summer.

The body of 10-year-old Khitan Devine, who disappeared in the surf in Atlantic City on Sunday night, was found near the beach in Margate on Wednesday morning, according to the Coast Guard in Philadelphia. The body was discovered by lifeguards a few yards from shore at Huntington Avenue, about four miles south of where he went missing. Khitan, who lived in North Carolina with his mother but spent summers with his father in Philadelphia, was in the water with his family Sunday evening at a beach between Kentucky Avenue and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, officials said.

Aside from a hundred or so cottages, a motel, and two or three restaurants, there isn't much here. It seems like a place that time has forgotten - or, at least, one that has long been forgotten by the rest of the township. Until now. When a contractor hired by Upper Township in the spring began driving pilings and constructing a foundation for a beach patrol station at the end of Williams Avenue, residents noticed. "When we saw this thing going up, we worried that it was going to be some big new thing that we didn't want to see on our beach," said Patty Miller, whose in-laws have owned a home in Strathmere for years.

The beach in Avalon, closed Saturday when medical waste washed ashore, reopened yesterday, luring bathers to its freshly cleaned sand. Borough officials walked the beach before dawn and gave it "a clean bill of health," said Murray Wolf, captain of the beach patrol. The beach reopened at 10 a.m. Lifeguards had shut down more than a mile of shoreline when beachgoers found intravenous needles and cotton swabs on the sand. Wolf said about 150 items reached shore between 10:30 a.m. Saturday and 12:30 p.m. That forced the closing of a stretch of beach from Ninth Street to 28th Street, as fire company and rescue-squad workers scrambled to collect the materials.

As lifeguards in Cape May City, Craig Forrest and Justin Kurtz have had their share of rescues at sea. Monday night, they made their first rescue in the sky. Their first sign that someone was in trouble came shortly before 8 p.m., less than 30 minutes into Continental's Flight 1266 from San Jose to Denver and Philadelphia. Was there a doctor or paramedic aboard, the captain asked. A 38-year-old passenger was having seizures - the effects from medication. No one spoke up. Then the lifeguards jumped in. "I said, 'We're qualified.

As Hurricane Bonnie churned toward the U.S. mainland yesterday, her turbulent effects had already reached the Jersey Shore in the form of roiling surf and dangerous riptides. The Atlantic City Beach Patrol rescued 101 swimmers Sunday from severe rip currents that quickly formed along the beachfront and pulled the swimmers from the shoreline into unsafe waters, according to assistant beach patrol chief Rod Aluise. Though some of the rescued swimmers in Atlantic City suffered minor head and neck injuries, none were seriously injured, officials said.

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. - Drawing a line in the sand, Cape May County officials began a campaign Monday against a bid in the state Senate to bar Shore towns from charging for beach access if they take state or federal aid to restore beaches ravaged by Sandy. They said the measure would be more catastrophic than the storm itself. "We'll do whatever we have to do to put a stop to this ridiculous idea," Freeholder Leonard Desiderio, who also is mayor of Sea Isle City, told a news conference in the gymnasium of the former Sea Isle elementary school called to show a "united front" against the bill and the first organized opposition to it. Desiderio said the Cape May County group will also solicit opposition to the bill from officials in Atlantic, Ocean, and Monmouth Counties.

SEA ISLE CITY, N.J. - Drawing a line in the sand, Cape May County officials began a campaign Monday against a bid in the state Senate to bar Shore towns from charging for beach access if they take state or federal aid to restore beaches ravaged by Sandy. They said the measure would be more catastrophic than the storm itself. "We'll do whatever we have to do to put a stop to this ridiculous idea," Freeholder Leonard Desiderio, who also is mayor of Sea Isle City, told a news conference in the gymnasium of the former Sea Isle elementary school called to show a "united front" against the bill and the first organized opposition to it. Desiderio said the Cape May County group will also solicit opposition to the bill from officials in Atlantic, Ocean, and Monmouth Counties.

  Hurricane Sandy has resurrected New Jersey's perennial battle of the beach tag, with a new twist. State Sen. Michael J. Doherty (R., Somerset) said last week he planned to submit legislation requiring any Jersey Shore community accepting public funding to make storm repairs to give free beach access and provide restrooms to the public. Shore town officials, who say they depend on tag revenue to maintain beaches, called Doherty's proposal everything from "clownish" to "moronic" after the Oct. 29 storm that wiped out entire beach communities and whose damages will likely creep into the tens of billions.

This story has been updated to correct the species of shark caught. A South Jersey man pulled a seven-foot sand tiger shark from the waters just off the shore of Ocean City, N.J., Wednesday evening. Just in time for Shark Week. The man, whom beach regulars know only as "Shark Tony," landed the seven-foot-long catch after hooking it from a kayak and paddling back to the beach near the 59th Street Pier. Mark Miedama, who worked as a member of the Ocean City beach patrol this summer, was sitting on the sand with friends about 7:30 when he noticed Shark Tony struggling with a big catch.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - Whether they're just grinding their toes a few inches into the sand or carving out deep holes that look like moon craters by day's end, beachgoers seem to have an innate need to dig. Beach patrols along the Jersey Shore are reconsidering limits on that digging since 12-year-old Ezra Cornman, of Brooklyn, N.Y., died Wednesday in a Monmouth County hospital the day after he was trapped under the sand when a tunnel he was digging on...

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - In 114 years, no one has drowned on their watch. But once the 154 members of the Ocean City Beach Patrol are off duty - especially when the weather is tropical, the water is unseasonably warm, and sunset is still hours away - bathers put their lives in danger. Elsewhere on the Jersey Shore, five fatalities related to rip currents have been reported in recent weeks, according to authorities. In most cases, the deaths happened where guards had packed up for the day. Anticipating the crush of bathers that comes during the high season, the Ocean City patrol has expanded its presence on three downtown beaches.