By Mike Busch

I checked out Moriches Inlet for the first time in several months on Saturday morning.  The only noticeable change is sand is starting to fill inside the inlet on the east side.  If you recall, this area needed emergency dredging just two years ago and will probably need it again in the next year or so.

Dredging is going to be a very lucrative business on the south shore of Long Island for next decade.  The multi-year $1.7 Billion Fire Island to Montauk (FIMP) Coastal-Storm Risk Management project will start on Fire Island Inlet in early October.  This opening $47 million project was awarded to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company to dredge Fire Island Inlet and reposition sand to Gilgo Beach and Robert Moses State Park.  This is a massive project that will impact almost all of the beaches spanning the 83 miles span to Montauk.  You can read up more on the project here.

I followed some beautiful boats through the inlet in the video above and got some ground and aerial shots on the three pages below.   On the way home I ran into a Portuguese man 0 war washed up on the beach on Page 3.

More Photos on Pages 2 and 3