Turning our attention to Long Island, we might take time out to note that New York State is one of the most popular areas in the nation for boating vacations. The New York State Department of Commerce estimates that the state's pleasure-craft fleet numbers close to 650,000, nearly one-tenth of the national total—thanks to the abundant opportunities for water sports in and around New York City. The state's thousands of miles of waterways offer the boatman just about every kind of sailing he'll find anywhere, including open ocean, sheltered Long Island Sound, scenic rivers and hundreds of island-studded mountain lakes. (New York has about 8,000 lakes and ponds, and most of them are used for some form of boating.)
On Long Island, sailors and land-lovers alike enjoy the superb beaches stretching eastward along the south shore from the Hamptons to Montauk Point. At the western end of the island are New York's city and suburban beaches: Jones Beach, and Coney Island. The reason why there are no famous beaches in the central part of the Long Island coast is that it's separated from the Atlantic by Fire Island, a thirty-mile stretch of sandspit which is in itself one of the most magnificent stretches of beach in North America. Fire Island's reputation has been undeservedly blemished by one or two tiny settlements of peculiar people, but all the rest are family resort communities, and when the new Fire Island National Seashore has been developed it will become one of the great recreational areas of the nation.
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