For the love of kayaking –– and South Shore bays

Freeport Kayak is far more than a business

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Jerry Foster doesn’t speak of getting his hands dirty when referring to his work. He likes to say that he gets his hands wet.

Foster, 53, of Merrick, owns Freeport Kayak Rentals, a part-time seasonal venture that he started in 2013. Now in its fourth summer, the business is growing by word of mouth, and Foster said he is having the time of his life.

Foster, who grew up in Floral Park, holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Adelphi University and works 40 hours a week for a company that sells industrial-strength laundry machines. He operates Freeport Kayak Friday to Sunday most every weekend over the summer.

He learned to love the water from an early age, Foster said. At Boy Scout camp in Rhode Island and New Hampshire, he spent his days canoeing and swimming. “You couldn’t get me away from the waterfront,” he said. “I just became a water rat.”

He went on to earn the Eagle Scout badge, scouting’s highest honor. At 18, he became an assistant scoutmaster, in part to help younger scouts, and in part so he could continue to attend camp and hang out by the water. He’s stuck with scouting ever since.

In 2008, Foster was between jobs, figuring out his life. He wanted to fall in love with his work, he said. The husband and father of three was an assistant Cub Scout master at the time. The grandfather of one of his charges owned Peconic Paddler, a kayak rental and equipment sales company in Riverhead, in eastern Suffolk County. Foster spent the summer working for him, learning the ins and outs of the kayak rental business. He then needed another five years to establish his own firm.

Now he launches from a leased space at the Village of Freeport’s Waterfront Park, a pristine green with a playground, picnic tables and barbecue pits, on the northeastern edge of Middle Bay, just south of Freeport and Baldwin.

On the water
Foster gave this reporter a tour of Middle Bay on a recent steamy Friday afternoon, as the sun shown down in all its summer glory and a steady wind blew over the water. After crossing a narrow channel, we circumnavigated a wide, nameless island –– essentially a large sandbar surrounded by Spartina marsh grass mudflats. The wind-driven waves lifted the fronts of our kayaks out of the water as we moved, and the boats made slapping sounds as they hit the water.

Paddling was tough. Then Foster pointed to a serpentine channel of calm water that ran along the island’s shoreline, untouched by the wind. Follow the channel, he said. Suddenly, the paddling turned easy.

I beached my kayak on a narrow strip of fine white sand to take it all in, while Foster continued paddling. A great white egret, its majestic wings outstretched, flew overhead. A massive moon jellyfish was caught in the surf, its grayish, gelatinous body shimmering in the sunlight. In the distance, two kayakers who had also come ashore were swimming in the bay, their heads bobbing in the surf.

A few minutes later I was back in my kayak and met up with Foster. He told a story about the little tan bay house on the island, owned by a man whom Foster affectionately called “Bob” (not his real name).

Bay houses were built decades ago, often by fishermen who plied South Shore bays for a living. The Town of Hempstead, which controls these waters, no longer allows construction of the houses. They can, however, be passed down within families, from one generation to the next. Of the dozens of houses that once graced the wetlands, only a handful remain. Bob’s house was nearly destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Like so many bay houses, it was lifted off its footings by Sandy’s 10-foot storm surge. Fortunately for the house, it got caught in a stand of short, stocky trees at the island’s southern tip, which kept it from being carried into Middle Bay. Bob had it repaired, and it remains today.

As we returned to Waterfront Park, we skirted a fishing line that stretched from a fisherman’s pole on the dock into the channel. A mother and father with young children were playing in the shallow water by Foster’s launch.

The tour menu
Freeport Kayak offers an array of bay tours, including:


* The Ecotour, for which Foster will guide you through Middle Bay’s islands and mudflats, pointing out the abundant wildlife. The tour is popular among Boy and Girl Scouts, but is open to all.

* The Sunset Paddle, a leisurely evening tour of the bay just as the sun is falling below the horizon in fiery shades of red and orange that light up the water.
The Full Moon Paddle, which usually launches between 8 and 8:30 p.m. and returns around 9:30 or 10. Few boats are out then so it’s quiet on the water. The lights of Freeport’s famed Nautical Mile, a collection of seafood eateries on the southern end of the village, are fully visible, and revelers there can be heard faintly.

* The Boats and Burgers Tour, which starts at 6 p.m. Participants paddle to Sonny’s Canal House in Baldwin, pull their kayaks ashore and enjoy a burger meal before heading back to Freeport.

Kayak rentals are $40 per person for two hours, or $140 for the day. Additional tour fees apply. See longislandkayakrentals.com for more information.

Foster, a Level 2 American Canoe Association instructor, also annually provides kayak rentals for the Molloy College Alumni Association, which sponsors a day of kayaking for Molloy alumni, students, faculty and staff at Hempstead Lake Park at the beginning of the fall semester. He serves as a Boy Scout canoeing merit badge counselor. He is a board member of Freeport SPLASH (Stop Polluting Littering and Save Harbors), one of the South Shore’s largest nonprofit environmental organizations. And he is secretary of the South Shore Blueway, a shallow-water trail that connects launch points across the South Shore, from South Oyster Bay, on the Nassau-Suffolk border, to West Bay, on the Nassau-Queens border.

“I grew up on the water,” Foster said. “It’s just a natural attraction for me.”