Two waterfront properties on Lake Montauk and one on Gardiner’s Bay were front and center at the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals meetings on Tuesday and Jan. 8, with the size of a pre-existing dock being questioned, the placement of a pool puzzled over, and the proposed location house on Gerard Drive under discussion.

    The dock in question is in the water at Lake Montauk adjoining a nearly one-acre property at 289 East Lake Drive owned by Peter Bennett and Jean Nevins. The couple are proposing to tear down an existing house with related structures and paving and replace it with a 4,679-square-foot house with 538 square feet of balconies, plus another 4,300 square feet of decking, a 674-square-foot swimming pool, a new septic system, and an expanded dock.

    The variances needed for the project were extreme, the board’s chairman, Alex Walter, said, calling the application “busy.” One of the setback variances requested would leave no separation from wetlands at all where 100 feet are required, and the variance requested for the septic system would place it 51 feet from wetlands where 200 feet are required.

    The expanded dock would be 80 feet long and requires a natural resources permit because it is on Lake Montauk, which New York State has designated as a significant fish and wildlife habitat, and which is part of the Peconic Estuary critical environmental area.

    While allowing that the proposal seemed, on the surface, to be asking for extreme variances, Mr. Walter also said, “I understand why this is such a busy application, as far as the upland portion” of the site. The property, he said, is severely constrained in terms of its proximity to wetlands.

    He also told the board it would be wise to bifurcate the proposal, and consider the upland part of the parcel separately from the dock, which is just what the board did.

    “There is no conforming envelope on the property,” Andy Hammer, of Biondo and Hammer told the board on Jan. 8.

    The Town Planning Department agreed with Mr. Hammer’s assessment when it came to the upland portion of the property, and, in fact, went further. “The proposed project will bring the lot coverage down 8,206 square feet, so that the property conforms to the total allowable lot coverage,” wrote Joel Halsey, a former planner for the town, in a memo to the board in September of last year.

    Brian Frank, the town’s chief environmentalist, called the property as it is an “environmental disaster.” It has two paved driveways, one to the house, the other running all the way down to Lake Montauk. Mr. Frank pointed out on Jan. 8 that runoff water from storms accumulates on the driveways and runs right into the wetlands.

    The proposed new house would be much smaller, with the paved driveway o the house replaced by a permeable one made with stones, and the second paved drive removed altogether. Also included is a major revegetation plan, bringing in native species where non-native invasives now grow.

    The board heartily embraced these proposals during Tuesday’s deliberations.

    But when it got to the proposed expanded dock, the application hit choppy waters.

    According to Mr. Halsey’s assessment, which was confirmed by Mr. Frank, the original certificate of occupancy was for a 38-foot dock. A dock that size would be allowed to remain on the site, despite the fact that it normally would not be permitted in Lake Montauk, because its existence predates town regulations prohibiting it. However, nothing larger would be permitted, unless the board grants a variance.

    Mr. Hammer argued that the exact size of the pre-existing dock was uncertain, a point the board seemed dubious about.

    Mr. Frank explained that Lake Montauk was not originally open to tidal flow. It was, in fact, the largest freshwater lake on Long Island, before Carl Fisher blasted an opening on its north side to the Long Island Sound in 1927, as part of his ill-fated “Miami North” development plan for Montauk.

    Mr. Frank told the board that the lake is very shallow, and that extending a dock into the lake would not get it into navigable waters.

    Don Cirillo, who is a strong proponent on the board of landowners’ rights, pointed out that the dock, with its planned extension, would still be on private land.

    “Is this a boat dock or a swim dock?” Mr. Walter had asked the applicants on Jan. 8.

    “It is a boat dock,” Mr. Hammer responded.

    However, later that night, Ms. Nevin told the board that the couple are kayakers, and that Mr. Bennett liked to walk out onto the end of the dock when the house was filled with summer guests. “Peter takes a chair, the crossword puzzle, and gets away from the crowd,” she said.

    The board requested a copy of the original certificate of occupancy from the town’s Building Department on Jan. 8, to settle the question of the original size of the dock, but had not received it as of Tuesday, and so, tabled the entire matter until the certificate is received.

    In a separate matter discussed Tuesday and on Jan. 8, the board considered Mark Goldberg’s plan for two nearly half-acre properties on East Lake Drive. One of Mr. Goldberg’s lots, at 269 East Lake Drive, runs from the road to Lake Montauk. The other, a vacant lot, adjoins it to the north and is also on the lake.

    Mr. Goldberg wants to build a 4,628-square-foot house with a deck on the undeveloped property and needs a natural resources special permit to do so because of the house’s proximity to the tidal wetland line and the bluff crest, something the board seemed willing to grant. It was the already developed property that sparked a somewhat heated debate.

    On that property, he wants to tear down the 2,100-square-foot house and replace it with a new 3,884-square-foot house. The existing pool, which is close to the lake, would be replaced with a new, larger pool. The house and deck caused little controversy in terms of their distance from wetlands, but the pool was another matter.

    “I believe that they had options to pull the pool back and locate it in a different location. My opinion is, they need to pull the pool back,” Bryan Gosman, a board member from Montauk who is familiar with the terrain, said during Tuesday’s deliberations.

    Mr. Cirillo told the board that he believed that the pool was placed where it was so it would be accessible to both properties. “I don’t like to tweak an application. I don’t have a problem with where the pool is,” he said.

    Lee White and Sharon McCobb, other board members, both agreed that the pool could be placed in another location where it would be more in line with the town code. Mr. White added that the applicant’s assertion that the new pool’s location should be allowed because it was farther away from Lake Montauk than the old pool, and therefore, an improvement, was not a valid argument and that the new request must stand or fall on its own merits.

    “I’d say this is substantial, compared to where it could be located,” Mr. Walter said.

    “When a person makes a request to do what they want to do, we should have a good reason to say no,” Mr. Cirillo said.

    The other board members felt there was a good reason, and voted 4-1 to deny the variances for the pool, then unanimously approved the variances for the new house.

    The application for Gerard Drive in Springs led to an unusual moment for the board, with Mr. Cirillo and Mr. Frank finding themselves allies on Jan. 8.

    The two have frequently been at loggerheads over the relevance of the town’s code versus a property owner’s right to develop.

    In this case, Barbara Kruger, who has owned her 881-square-foot house for many years, wants to save it from potential flooding from Gardiner’s Bay, which is right across the road, and adhere to the Federal Emergency Management minimum first-floor height regulations, her representative, Mary Whelan, told the board. She plans to move the house 20 feet landward, away from the causeway but closer to the wetlands, and raise it up 41/2 feet. The house, which would be as close as 70 feet from wetlands, would need a variance for that reason and several others because of its height.

    As opposed to building some form of shore hardening, which would be against town code, a “retreat is one of the options that this board, and I’ll speak for myself, looks kindly towards,” Mr. Walter said.

    Mr. Cirillo asked Ms. Whelan whether Ms. Kruger had considered moving the house even closer to the wetlands. Ms. Whelan responded that she and her client had tried to adhere, as much as possible, to town code with the proposed move.

    Mr. Frank said the Planning Department would encourage the move Mr. Cirillo suggested, in this specific case, due to the expense of such a move on the homeowner, who would, in all likelihood, get just one bite at the apple.

    Mr. Cirillo seemed surprised by Mr. Frank’s comments, saying, “I wasn’t necessarily advocating . . . I wouldn’t want to micromanage.”

    Mr. Walter said the board could keep the hearing open for two weeks, which would allow Ms. Whelan and Ms. Kruger to explore whether a request for the additional footage should be added to the application.

    Ms. McCobb, whose term on the board was up at the end of last year, is continuing as a board member for now. The town board tabled a decision on an appointment to the zoning board earlier this month.

    East Hampton Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc suggested Tuesday that the town remove the Fort Pond House property in Montauk from the market, but was opposed by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, who called opposition to the sale “political.”

    Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, Mr. Van Scoyoc’s Democratic cohort on the board, agreed with his proposal. Defending an ongoing lawsuit challenging the sale, brought by several community groups, is costing the town money, she said.

    The four-acre waterfront property on Fort Pond, which contains an old house that was used by groups including the Boy Scouts and the Third House Nature Center, along with other community groups, was put up for sale in 2010 despite massive public opposition.

    The move prompted two lawsuits — an Article 78 that alleged that the town acted illegally in several ways when authorizing the sale of the property, including violations of the state open meetings law and public trust doctrine, and a federal suit that alleged Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley had violated opponents’ constitutional rights by retaliating against those who opposed the sale. That case has been settled.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc asked the board not only “to remove Fort Pond House from consideration for sale,” but also requested “further investigation to be made as to its use” and possible designation as parkland.

    “The town is not in the same economic straits that it was in when this sale was proposed,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

    “Thanks to this board,” Ms. Quigley threw in. She said that the job of fixing the town’s economic difficulties is not complete. Town officials, she said, “did a thorough analysis of what the town needs to keep itself afloat. . . . I think it’s inappropriate for us to retain it,” she said of the Fort Pond House site. “In addition, it’s in the middle of litigation.”

    That, Ms. Overby said, is part of the point. The litigation has “dragged on,” she said, and is costly. “That is part of our fiduciary obligation,” she said, to minimize the legal costs to the town. In addition, she said, a sale of the property would be subject to a permissive referendum, which could be an additional cost, if enough residents force a vote on the sale. With public opinion against the sale, Ms. Overby said, a permissive referendum is a likelihood.

    “It is a town asset; it was being used by the community,” Ms. Overby said. “And I think that we have been negligent in letting that town asset deteriorate.” She said the money spent on defending the lawsuit would have been better spent on maintaining the site, which has fallen into disrepair.

    Both Ms. Quigley and Mr. Wilkinson called questions about the sale political.

    “We campaigned on the fact that we were going to sell properties,” said Ms. Quigley, who ran on a Republican ticket with Mr. Wilkinson and Councilman Dominick Stanzione. “We chose one property — one. And the people who lost the election decided to fight. It’s a political issue,” she said.

    Mr. Wilkinson echoed that. “The people in Montauk didn’t even know where it was,” he said. “We campaigned in 2007 and 2009 on the fact that we were going to sell properties,” said Mr. Wilkinson. He said he targeted Fort Pond House in part to prove that he would not shy away from selling a town property in his own hamlet of Montauk.

    “It’s a community issue,” Ms. Overby said.

    “It’s a C.C.O.M. issue,” Mr. Wilkinson retorted, referring to the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an organization with which he has at times disagreed.

    “I don’t think it’s necessary to sell for financial reasons,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “And I think it’s a benefit to the community.”

    “Montauk is 70-percent preserved,” Ms. Quigley said. “I think it would be better to get better housing out there.”

    The town’s comprehensive plan, Ms. Overby pointed out, calls for reducing density of development.

    Mr. Stanzione did not weigh in on the debate.

    The sound of explosions started over a year ago, with what seemed to be professional-grade fireworks. Now, one woman said, the culprits seem to have moved on to pipe bombs, but the source of the alarming noises besieging Montauk — the most recent of them heard on Sunday evening north of the Montauk Firehouse — remains a mystery.

    Sunday’s explosion was heard toward the Montauket on Tuthill Road, and though some claim to know who is responsible, East Hampton Town police have yet to make any arrests.

    Many of those who commented for this story asked that their names not be used for fear of retaliation with a bomb set on their lawn. And many pointed to one couple living near Gravesend Avenue and Greenwich Street whom they suspect are responsible, though none would name the pair.

    According to East Hampton Town police, the apparent explosives have been set off in a number of areas of the hamlet, including Second House Road, the golf course at the Montauk Downs State Park, West Lake Drive, and several beaches.

    Many residents have reported calling the police about the noises, but the Montauk Precinct commander, Lt. Chris Hatch, said there have been surprisingly few calls.

    Lieutenant Hatch said that the police have been investigating for the last three months. Fireworks have been confirmed, but, citing confidentiality, he declined to say who made that confirmation. He said that despite the reports coming in to the department there has been nothing that has led police to the perpetrators.

    Officers have heard the explosions and have responded to the areas where they believed they originated, but have found nothing, he said, adding, “the explosives occur without warning and leave no evidence.”

    The noises sound like a house exploding, Gail Simons wrote in an online forum, and are louder than anything she’s ever heard. Her children cry out in fear and huddle in corners and her dogs go running for cover. It is the female half of the couple who often sets off the explosives, Ms. Simons claimed, sometimes from her own backyard and sometimes near her place of work by West Lake Drive.

    The worst of the bunch came right before Christmas, said Vicki Rudolph. She saw a flash and within a second her whole house shook. Her 10-year-old daughter was terrified and screamed, “ ‘Mommy, Mommy where are you?’ She thought I was hurt,” she said.

    The blasts usually occur at night around 10 p.m., but there have been a few during the day. In summer, the noises stopped.

    Kim Gatti said she feels as if she’s living in a war zone, with the sounds of bombs and gunshots.

    Some have speculated that the noises are coming from the Long Island Power Authority’s substation on Industrial Road. But Mark Gross, a spokesman for LIPA, disputed that, saying that if a piece of equipment failed it would make a loud popping sound and would also cause electrical outages, none of which have been reported. He said that the frequency at which residents are hearing the noises also indicates they could not be from the station. “No, it’s not us,” he said.

    Lieutenant Hatch said he’s worried that the people setting off the explosives will eventually have an accident or an explosive will land on someone’s house. Since the department began investigating, police have found no evidence, such as burn marks or burned mailboxes. “We hope that the public will assist us and forward all information immediately,” he said.

    “She did not get nearly the punishment she should have, in my opinion,” said East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen yesterday.

    The chief was speaking of the 30-day sentence handed down in county criminal court on Jan. 9 to Keri Dewhirst of Ronkonkoma. Judge James C. Hudson imposed the sentence after she pleaded guilty to embezzling close to half a million dollars from Schenck Fuels of East Hampton.

    Ms. Dewhirst, 38, had been Schenck’s bookkeeper for six years when, in the fall of 2010, Chris Schenck and Rodney Herrlin, cousins and co-owners of the company, became suspicious.

    Mr. Herrlin said yesterday that Mr. Schenck had been looking for a new car around that time, “and a couple of weeks later she rolled in” in a brand-new Mercedes, the very one he’d been yearning over in the showroom. After admiring the car, the cousins asked the bookkeeper what it had cost to lease it.

    She wasn’t leasing, she said, she’d paid cash.

    It was during the depths of the recession. “We’d been letting people go, trying to save some money,” Mr. Herrlin remembered. “But every time we let someone go we didn’t see any difference.”

    The partners wondered, but “We had to trust somebody, and we trusted her,” he said — until Ms. Dewhirst drove her $75,000 car to work. Then they went to the police.

    “We did a short investigation and determined she was stealing,” Chief Larsen said. Ms. Dewhirst was fired immediately and charged not long after with grand larceny. She pleaded guilty to the charge in October 2011.

    Ms. Dewhirst, who is pregnant, has paid $60,000 in restitution up front and has agreed to pay the company $2,000 a month for the next five years. If she misses a payment, according to a court stipulation, she will go to jail for a minimum of five years, or as many as 15.

    “She took a company that has been around since 1902 and nearly bankrupted them,” said Chief Larsen. “They are recouping $180,000 out of the $440,000, and we believe it probably was more.”

    In this case, said the chief, it would appear that crime may indeed have paid.

    The outlook for Montauk’s threatened oceanfront improved Monday with the passage in the House of Representatives of $50.7 billion in Hurricane Sandy aid. The measure moves now to the Senate, where its approval appears certain.

    Representative Tim Bishop, whose district includes East Hampton and Southampton Towns, said that he had been in a preliminary conversation with representatives of the Army Corps of Engineers to argue that the row of motels along Montauk’s south-facing beach needed immediate protection.

    “I am pushing very hard for beach nourishing,” he said. “The infrastructure is imperiled.”

    The Atlantic beachfront along Montauk’s main business district was sharply eroded during Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 29, then suffered again during an early northeaster about a week later. Most of the protective dunes along a roughly half-mile-long stretch were clawed away. Efforts by resort and condominium owners there to shore up their properties have been ongoing.

    In an interview yesterday Mr. Bishop said that the House bill contained $1 billion for flood control and coastal emergencies and would pay for up to 100 percent of projects approved by the Army Corps of Engineers.

    “The immediate need in Montauk is an emergency, at least in my opinion, and it’s my job to convince the Corps of that,” he said.

    He said that he was going to look at needs on the entirety of Long Island, with particular interest in Montauk. Any quick restoration on the Montauk oceanfront this year would be a stopgap, he said, “but we need to get some sand on the beach right now.”

    Mr. Bishop said that a separate portion of the Sandy relief package would make money available to local governments for projects intended to reduce coastal hazards over the long term. Up to 7.5 percent of each state’s share of the $50.7 billion package could be made available. It would be up to village and town governments to apply to the State Office of Emergency Management, which would manage grant applications for federal funding.

    Under the terms of the long-term hazard-reduction portion of the bill, local governments would contribute 25 percent of the cost of projects, Mr. Bishop said.

    “There is time to prepare a really, really good, well-thought-out application,” he said.

    He said that Brian Beedenbender, his district office director, and Oliver Longwell, his communications director, had begun meeting with every mayor and town supervisor in the First Congressional District to brief them on the process. They met with East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson last Thursday to discuss the Montauk erosion, Mr. Longwell said.

    In all, the Army Corps is set to receive $5.35 billion, Mr. Bishop’s office said in a press release yesterday. Of that, $3.5 billion would be for repairs to ongoing projects damaged by Sandy, and $821 million for dredging and maintaining navigation channels.

    Other provisions in the package include $11.5 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief fund, $5.5 billion for the Federal Transit Administration, $16 billion in community development block grants, and $780 million in small-business recovery loans.

    Mr. Bishop said that he had had a good response from the federal agencies so far. “In the wake of the storm they were able to mobilize a dredge to close two of the breaches along the South Shore — put sand onto the beach — within three to four weeks.”

    Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in an e-mail yesterday that he, like Mr. Bishop, had been focused on the portion of the package appropriating money to the Army Corps.

    “I spoke with Tim Bishop several times about this, including this morning,” he said. “We both agree that our primary push will be for downtown Montauk. That is the portion of my district that needs immediate attention and is most vulnerable to future storms. We would be looking for a beach nourishment project — not any hard structures.”

    Mr. Thiele said that he hoped the Army Corps would agree to an emergency project for Montauk similar to that approved for Tiana Beach in Hampton Bays and to close post-Sandy breaches in the barrier beach near Cupsogue on Dune Road in Westhampton Beach.

    In East Hampton Town, Len Bernard, the town budget officer, said that officials were in the process of applying for $400,000 in first-round funding. An example was the restoration of Gerard Drive in Springs, which was heavily damaged during Sandy. He said that there was approximately $2.5 million in damages to town properties from the storm and that he hoped to get as much as three-quarters of that reimbursed.

    Rosemarie Cary Winchell, the Sagaponack clerk and treasurer, said yesterday that she anticipated that the village would not seek funding. She said that the village did not suffer significant damage, as it does not have all that much public property. Seven private houses were lost in the storm, she said, as well as dunes and beaches. A bath house owned by the Town of Southampton was damaged.

    Steve Kalimnios, the owner of the Royal Atlantic resort in Montauk, which, along with neighboring hotels, has been undermined by storms with increasing frequency, said, “I’m ecstatic if the enthusiasm for some kind of beach project turns into dollars. I’m cautiously optimistic. This is good news that it’s being recognized as an emergency.”

    Jeremy Samuelson, executive director of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk environmental group, said, “I think everyone is of the same mind at this point about the need for short-term, medium-term, and long-range solutions to downtown Montauk’s vulnerability. This might be an opportunity to accelerate the process, to get sand on the beach. Everyone would be supportive of that, including C.C.O.M.”

    Mr. Samuelson went on to stress the importance of getting the maximum benefit of any federal money. “If it’s done the right way, it would increase the natural barrier, giving us years of protection, but it comes down to design. You need the insight of people who know about it.”

    Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village administrator, said that a recent letter from the village to Mr. Bishop asked that he help find a way to restore eroded beach and dunes in the Georgica area.

    “A couple things are going on. My conversations with FEMA about Main Beach and Georgica — some sand replenishment might be possible, even though those are not ‘engineered’ beaches, normally a requirement of Army Corps reconstruction. This may make this even more likely. If the funding is approved, it’s huge,” Mr. Cantwell said.

With Reporting by Joanne Pilgrim and Carrie Ann Salvi

Jack Perna, the superintendent of the Montauk School, has been chosen to be the grand marshal of the 2013 Montauk Friends of Erin St. Patrick’s Day parade, which will begin on March 17 at 11:30 a.m., a week earlier than it has been traditionally held.

The vote for Mr. Perna was unanimous at the Friends of Erin meeting on Thursday night.

The naming of the grand marshal is always big news in the hamlet at this time of year. Residents try to guess who will be chosen, throwing prominent residents' names around. Many started sending their kudos to the popular principal Thursday night via Facebook.

Mr. Perna is known as a cheerleader for Montauk's students, even years after they graduate. For example, when he hears that a former student made the honor roll or was on a dean’s list at college, he makes a call to congratulate them. He calls the students “my kids,” as if the school is one big happy family, which it appears to be when one is visiting the school.

An owner of Pizza Village in downtown Montauk for many years, Mr. Perna always hired local young people to work behind the counter. And when the older students go on field trips to Washington or Albany, he either drives or flies to spend a day with them there.

Mr. Perna is no stranger to awards and honors. He was named man of the year at the annual end-of-season party in 2000 hosted by the Montauk Chamber of Commerce. Over the Thanksgiving weekend, he was chosen by the Montauk Historical Society to flip the switch that lit up the Montauk Lighthouse with over 3,000 white holiday lights.

In an e-mail message Friday, Mr. Perna said he’d have to come up with new material for all the publicity he will soon be doing for the Friends of Erin. “But at my age I don’t know if I can,” he said.

    In the predawn light, they looked like a medieval army standing beside their weapons on a boat bound for an invasion, Russian and Chinese speakers on the port side with a phalanx of West Indian-Americans and anglers from New Jersey, Brooklyn, Queens, and as far away as Poughkeepsie astern and lining the starboard side with fishing rods at the ready.

    All were twice their normal size, cowled and buttressed against the cold in layers of clothing. A light snow had fallen Sunday morning as the 86 fishermen boarded the Viking Starship long before the party boat’s 5 a.m. departure time. Many had been driving toward Montauk all night like moths to a flame that most people would consider cold, sickening, and pointless. After all, you can buy a lot of fish for the $120 Viking tariff, the cost of what was to be 13 hours tossed upon the cold winter Atlantic in hopes of catching cod and sea bass.

    But they soldiered on before dawn en route to offshore, deepwater fishing grounds, to a number of shipwrecks northeast and later southeast of Block Island whose moldering hulks attract fish. They slept in the Starship’s chairs, drank beer or coffee, chain-smoked cigarettes. A few dropped Dramamine as steel-wool clouds began to brighten an iron-gray day — the Starship’s tropical-green trim seemed a sick joke — to no avail.

    Two and a half hours later, they stood in the early morning light swaying to the Starship’s roll as her mates doled out the clam-bait ammunition and Captain Dave Marmeno set the anchors in 80 feet of water. The army of 86 murmured in different tongues, waiting shoulder to shoulder with baited hooks and visible breath for the captain’s order to send terminal gear to the bottom to attack the fish.

    The first “drop” was dog-infested. A large pack of dogfish leaped on the clam baits. The close-quarter fishing and wind-against-tide sea condition combined to snarl lines. This caused Ray DiAnntonio and the rest of the mates to play a continuous game of cat’s cradle with birds nests of fishing line, hooks and all, while expertly calming impatient anglers with a balanced mix of humor and, depending on the complexity of the snarl, its opposite.     

    But then a sound, a whine, and laughter that brightened the gray clouds and charcoal sea. The whine was Billy Foster’s electric reel. He stood at the rail on the Starship’s aft quarter, starboard side. A wire connected his reel to a battery on the deck. The gizmo whined as it pulled a dogfish to the surface, while the others, by contrast, cranked and cranked their catch off the bottom. Heads turned, smiles erupted.

    He was a Vietnam veteran, originally from Trinidad, a retired ironworker with Local 580. He had worked on “the pile,” the collapsed Twin Towers, for 11 months after Sept. 11. The reel cost $1,500, a birthday gift from his wife.

    Captain Marmeno up-anchored to flee the dogs. The next drop was, “that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” as George Gibson from South Orange put it, lifting a fat sea bass over the rail. Anglers began boating sea bass, cod, ling, and an occasional pollack with regularity. The snarls, both physical and verbal, continued, but bonds among the anglers began to grow apace.

Anglers competing in the pool aboard the Viking Starship on Sunday brought their sea bass catches to the scales.”

 Russell Drumm

    Out came the fish stories from trips gone by, “There I was,” and cigarettes, “Got a light?” and, backslapping, “Nice fish.” These were people for whom discomfort was okay, brothers and sisters in the wet and the cold and the total absence of terra firma, all in order to feel the tug, the vibration of a fish on the end of a line, lines that connected them to something more fundamental than what they’re attached to on a normal day. 

    The Starship moved again, and this time the lucky one was Gelu Pislaru, originally from Rumania, a land whose women were extremely beautiful, he said. He married one at the age of 20 — “or somebody else would have married her when I was away in the army.” They’ve been married for 23 years. Mr. Pislaru caught a 20-pound cod, a contender for the pool with a pot that exceeded $800. He grumbled, but remained stoic when the mate informed him his fish was disqualified. He was fishing with a three-hook rig, while pool rules limited the number of hooks to two.

    Hours passed unnoticeably as they tend to do at sea, like a dream that’s sometimes bad, sometimes good, but a dream all the same.

    The Starship steamed south to another successful drop. Coolers filled, gulls and gannets wheeled overhead in the 25-knot wind, and the sea was galloping with the broken crests known as white horses. Captain Marmeno had stayed late. The battle was over. Time to head home.

    The mates began filleting the catch. Sharp knives flashed through the fish flesh in the waning light. A Chinese man with no English was told via hand signals that he would have to wait to fill his plastic bag from the bucket of fish racks — for soup stock perhaps. Anglers slept in the Starship’s rows of reclining chairs and overflowed onto the bunks below decks.

    A former Coast Guard boatswains mate looked at his new wife in amazement. She had never been offshore. “I got seasick and she didn’t,” he said. “She caught a sea bass and a cod on the first drop.” You could tell it was a story bound to live on for years to come.

    A police detective’s gut feeling, combined with intelligence and a refusal to give up, resulted last year in the arrest of an East Hampton man who has been charged with 76 counts of sexual misconduct with children, including rape involving girls as young as 9 or 10.

    Now that detective, Tina Giles, a 27-year veteran of the East Hampton Town Police Department, has been named its Officer of the Year. She will be feted, along with other top cops from local jurisdictions, at a Kiwanis dinner on Jan. 25.

    On April 6, 2012, police arrested Fidel A. Castro-Brito, now 24, after a father came home from work and surprised the man in bed with his teenage daughter. As the father called police, Mr. Castro-Brito jumped out the bedroom window and fled. He was picked up soon after and charged with five counts of sexual misconduct with the girl, who was 15 or 16 at the time.

    Police initially thought that the contact between the two, which they said had come about through the Internet, was an isolated case. But Detective Giles had a feeling about it that she couldn’t let go of, arising in part from conversations with Mr. Castro-Brito.

    One of Ms. Giles’s skills is the ability to speak Spanish. “People may say I’m fluent,” she said on Tuesday. “I don’t use the word fluent. I use the word ‘proficient.’ ” Whichever it is, she is at ease with the language, having studied abroad, during college, in Mexico City.

    Understanding the nuances of a language allows one to read between the lines — to get a feeling from the way something is said as much as from the words themselves. Detective Giles had a feeling about Mr. Castro-Brito, and it was not a good one.

    “In essence, she was the arresting officer in the original matter,” said Detective Lt. Chris Anderson, the unofficial spokesman for the town police, on Tuesday. “Based on her findings in that case and the interviews she made with the defendant and others, her ‘detective sense’ took over, leading her to believe that there were more victims.”

    Because the putative victims were Latino, the detective’s language skills proved a major asset, putting the young people she interviewed at ease and helping them feel safe with her. In the end, the investigation went beyond East Hampton, possibly as far as New York City, though Detective Anderson would say only that “it was in the downstate area.” Speaking of the initial contact between Mr. Castro-Brito and his alleged victims, he said they were “all known to him, in one sense or another.”

    In November, after eight months of investigation, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office announced it was bringing 71 new charges against Mr. Castro-Brito. What Detective Giles had unearthed was an apparent serial sexual offender.

    The felony charges against Mr. Castro-Brito include multiple counts of predatory sexual assault against a child, two charges of rape stemming from sexual intercourse with a girl under 11 years of age, multiple charges of sexual abuse many charges involving recordings of sexual encounters with children. It would appear from the charges that Mr. Castro-Brito made them himself.

    Detective Anderson is usually guarded in what he says to the press, rarely revealing emotion. Not so in this case.

    “There is no hesitation on my part in referring to this defendant as a predator,” he said forcefully. “This guy was a predator. If not for the efforts of Detective Giles, taking it a step further than she needed to, there might well have been more victims.”

    “She sacrificed a lot of her personal time and life for the job,” he added.        Detective Giles, who was born and grew up in East Hampton, joined the force in September 1986, after having spent four summers working as a traffic control officer. She had no children at the time. She is now married with two daughters, one in college and one in high school.

    She was the first woman here to be named to the rank of detective, in only her fifth year on the force. She found herself drawn to working with troubled youths, “investigating juveniles as victims and as perpetrators. I got more involved investigating juvenile crimes.”

    She has had many successes with troubled youngsters. “A lot of kids have poor choices,” she said. “They get themselves involved in drugs, maybe dropping out of high school. And now they are productive adults and parents.”

    The detective takes a holistic approach to law enforcement. “The juvenile justice system is there to rehabilitate a child more than to punish,” she said. “They do give a child a second chance. You want them to take responsibility for their actions.”

    She is troubled by what she sees as increasing violence among younger children. “It does seem that more serious crimes are being committed at a younger age. There’s a lack of parents’ involvement, a need for parents to spend more time.”

    One problem prevalent nationally has not surfaced in East Hampton, she said  — gangs. “Gangs? I say there are more wannabes. They wannabe gangsters,” she said, laughing.

    She called the honor soon to be bestowed on her “the highlight of my career.”

    Summing up Detective’s Giles’s importance to the force, Detective Anderson said she “bridges a gap between the police department and the Hispanic community. I can’t say enough about her. She is a consummate professional.”

    He paused for a moment, then added, “Think about the victim who is sitting there, whose life will be forever changed. She gave those victims a voice.”

    The inevitable change wrought by Mother Nature is spurring changes at Georgica Beach in East Hampton in light of the destruction caused by storms in 2011 and 2012.

    At an East Hampton Village Board meeting last Thursday, Drew Bennett, a consulting engineer working on behalf of the village, updated the board on repairs to be made to facilities at Georgica and Main Beaches.

    The road end at Georgica Beach, said Mr. Bennett, was undermined by the surging tide during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and again during Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 29. Mr. Bennett proposed repairs to the asphalt road, a split-rail fence, a curb, and the addition of 600 cubic yards of sand. The sand, he said, would “provide some degree of structural integrity and protection of the property. At a minimum, it’s basically what we did a year and a half ago.” A second phase, Mr. Bennett said, would add an additional 2,500 cubic yards of sand to rebuild the dune.

    Mr. Bennett said that he and Larry Cantwell, the village administrator, met with Federal Emergency Management Agency officials and are preparing a plan that would be consistent with the agency’s reimbursement policies. These policies aim to avoid repeated damage and promote economic recovery.

Repairs planned for Main Beach include straightening and stabilizing the pavilion’s deck, replacing the lattice skirt on its front and side, and replacing cedar shingles.

 Morgan McGivern

    Mr. Cantwell said he was encouraged by a Dec. 28 meeting with a FEMA representative, and that he felt that the agency “would seriously consider a larger beach replenishment project, both at Georgica Beach and at Main Beach.” The FEMA representative was “up in the food chain, so to speak, and had quite a bit of experience and was an engineer. He thought we should make a strong case under mitigation from recurring damage as well as for economic recovery, because we explained to him how important our public beaches are — as public facilities, the number of permits we issue, the importance to the culture and economic fabric of the community,” he said.

    At that point, the board’s Richard Lawler spoke up. “What about bulkheading the end of the road before we repair it, because that always gets undermined, and that’s what tears up the pavement, eventually. At Main Beach, that didn’t happen at the top of the road because there’s bulkheading there.” He asked Mr. Bennett if he knew the cost of such work and whether or not FEMA would pay for it. Mr. Bennett answered that FEMA may classify such work as mitigation, but that the board should also consider the aesthetic change a bulkhead would represent. “Certainly, if the board feels that that’s the way to go, we could include that in the plans. The cost of that is, in round numbers, probably $30,000,” he said.

    Such work would require a permit from the East Hampton Town Trustees as well as the State Department of Environmental Conservation, Mr. Bennett said.

    With Memorial Day weekend the crucial deadline to complete such work, Barbara Borsack, another board member, asked, “Would that set us back time-wise if we decided to do something like that?”

    “You’d know quickly,” Mr. Bennett replied.

    But Mr. Cantwell cautioned against a hasty decision that would have long-term implications on the character of Georgica Beach. “As the level of the beach changes, you would have a hard fixture there. That’s a lot different than what we’re accustomed to having there, aesthetically and otherwise, in previous years.”

    “People always object to change, but they do get used to it,” said Ms. Borsack. “It might be something that people don’t like at first but would probably adjust, in a few years, and forget that it was ever not there if we had to put a stair system in there. I think it’s worth looking into, especially two years in a row that we’ve had to do this.”

    Bruce Siska, another board member, agreed with Ms. Borsack. “I think we should go with trying to put bulkheading in, like at Main Beach. It would save the road, at least, from getting torn up so if sand goes down a little bit, we can put in stairways. That’s pretty easy to do.”

    The bulkheading at the Main Beach road end, said Mr. Bennett, held up through Hurricane Sandy, and resulting damage was minimal compared to that at Georgica Beach. “That was an investment made in the early ’80s, and it really held up great,” he said. 

    “That sand has maintained its level right up against that bulkheading,” Ed McDonald, the village’s beach manager, said of Main Beach. “It’s pretty impressive that it went through two monster storms and that one structure held up to everything. We should seriously think about putting one down at Georgica.”

    Only minor repairs are necessary at Main Beach, said Mr. Bennett. “The building itself actually did quite well. It’s built on piles, above a 100-year flood elevation. The decking is on simple posts that are in the sand, so there is some movement in the deck and some posts that have rolled a bit. The plan is to lift it up, adjust it, tweak it, lock it as best we can to try to straighten it out.” The lattice skirt in front of the deck, as well as the side, was lost and will be replaced, he said, and approximately 150 square feet of cedar shingles were lost. Adding approximately 2,000 cubic yards of sand to the beach would be advisable, he added.

    Some jagged edges at the road end will have to be repaired, Mr. Bennett said. The lifeguard shack, which was also damaged, had been in disrepair for some time and should be replaced regardless of Sandy’s impact on it, he added. The village would have to absorb that cost, Mr. Cantwell said.

    Eleven of the 12 Sea Spray cottages at Main Beach suffered roof damage between Hurricane Sandy and the northeaster that followed, said Mr. Bennett, and the village will have to consider re-roofing the cottages. FEMA, said Mr. Cantwell, would not cover that repair, but given the rental revenue the cottages generate, maintaining them is a justifiable expense.

    Ms. Borsack calculated approximately $400,000 in total costs for repairs to both beaches. Mr. Cantwell predicted that FEMA would cover approximately 75 percent of the total. “That’s an estimate, obviously, but we were successful a year ago in getting reimbursement,” he said. “It depends on how much they’re going to pay for mitigation. All this work qualifies, but they will reimburse the cost of putting back what was there originally, and no more, and we’re doing some more than that.”

    Geoffrey Lynch, president of Peconic Bay Water Jitney, attended Tuesday evening’s Sag Harbor Village Board meeting to announce that he does not “have any immediate plans to go forward with service in 2013.”

    Mr. Lynch recapped the jitney’s trial ferry service that ran between the village and Greenport for 85 days last summer, saying that from June 20 through Sept. 30 the boat had transported an average of 195 passengers per day. The gross income was $160,000, he said, and Hampton Jitney, which he co-owns with his brother, “spent a heck of a lot more than that.”

    Despite the “financial bust,” Mr. Lynch said he and his partner in the trial, Jim Ryan of Response Marine, do not want to give up on the idea of ferry service between the waterfront villages. He said ZIP codes on receipts indicated a predominantly local customer base and that there had been very little negative feedback from customers, municipalities, or boaters.

    Although passenger counts didn’t reach the hoped-for 250 a day, Mr. Lynch said that the “appetite from a local perspective is there . . . 195 shows potential.” He believes there is a broader market out there, as well, including tourists and day-trippers.

    Mr. Lynch chalked up the difficulties to “first-time operator teething issues,” from boat maintenance costs to exceeding budgeted fuel expenses. In the future, he hopes to receive money from the federal government to pay for the boats. He said one vessel is not enough to increase the frequency of service. “Two vessels would be ideal.”

    In answering a question from Mia Grosjean of Save Sag Harbor, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the village attorney, said that if the Peconic Bay Water Jitney did receive funding, it would require a new approval process, what with the expiration of the temporary permit allowing the ferry service and the use of Long Wharf. “Basically they would have to start from scratch,” Mr. Thiele said.

    Mr. Lynch thanked the village board and the community for allowing the trial run, and Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman for his support.