Fire Island Ignites Dreams of Escape : Near Manhattan, off of Long Island’s south shore, is a quieter, gentler world once populated by pirates.

Early on summer Monday mornings, a squadron of seaplanes appears over the south shore of Long Island. It streams above the shallow waters of the Great South Bay toward a long, narrow barrier island. On gray weathered docks in Saltaire, Ocean Beach, Lonelyville and other communities along the bay, dress-suited, attache-carrying men and women gather to be flown to their offices in Manhattan. Meanwhile, large white ferryboats pick up the hundreds who take the train to work, leaving behind mothers and children and a few lucky others.

On the ocean side of the island, solitary joggers pad silently along the edge of the surf where sandpipers on toothpick legs poke nervously about for breakfast. Shades of beige and light blue, sand and water, stretch out until they disappear into a soft white haze. There are no boardwalks, roller coasters, hot-dog stands or waterfront hotels. There is only glorious soft sand, running uninterrupted for 32 miles between the houses on the dunes and the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the magnificent beach at Fire Island National Seashore.

Vacationers discovered Fire Island more than 150 years ago, but it wasn’t always a playground for summer visitors. The earliest English settlers used the beach for sighting whales; the huge fires they built may have given the island its name. Pirates are known to have lived here, and stories of their buried treasure are not just invention: Some of it has been found.

There is a dark side to the island’s history as well. So many sailors drowned when their ships broke up on the offshore reef that Fire Island was called “the graveyard of the Atlantic.” The slave trade, too, is part of the tale: Stockades and pens were built on the island to hold those on their way to the auction block.

Today the National Park Service administers the eastern 26 miles of Fire Island, including the various small communities within that realm. The westernmost six miles of the island belong to Robert Moses State Park.

All this seems far away on weekend afternoons when the beach is thick with people. On the hard sand near the water, strollers pass players of kadima, a kind of free-form paddle ball. Volleyball is popular, too, and games range from casual to very intense.

In the sky there are kites--not the kind our fathers used to make of sticks and the Sunday paper, or the simple diamond shapes we bought in toy stores. These are multicolored birds, or little darters with long tails, or rainbows of interconnected squares swooping languidly in great arcs. Down below, an occasional fisherman casts beyond the surf, hoping for a bluefish or striped bass.

The ocean created Fire Island and is constantly making revisions. Over the centuries, inlets to the bay have filled in, making one island of many. A lighthouse built in 1825 at the water’s edge now stands several miles inland. Great storms have torn away chunks of the island and deposited them elsewhere.

None of this has deterred the construction of beach houses perched on pilings sunk deep into the sand in heroic, or foolhardy, attempts to deny the sea its due. In the great hurricanes of ’38 and ‘62, hundreds of homes were destroyed by the wind and sea. It is not uncommon today to see once-solid decks propped up on poles stuck in sand dunes that continue to push their way inland.

But most often the sea is benign. On bright sunny days, children dash in and out until their lips turn blue, then come up to be wrapped in towels and hugged warm. They range fearlessly along the beach or play in the shallows or jump squealing over the breakers, holding tight to their parents’ hands.

From time to time a Jeep rides slowly past and the youngsters stop to stare as if looking at something from outer space. It’s a policeman making his rounds, and except for his and other official vehicles, like school buses, there are no automobiles on Fire Island. With that danger removed, children wander safely around their little towns and parents relax.

The absence of cars sets the special tone of the island. People ride bikes or walk barefoot, pulling rusty red wagons behind them when they go to market, and bathing suits are worn everywhere. Admittedly, this way of life isn’t for everyone. For some, Fire Island is duller than dull, but if you’ve ever dreamed of escaping to a desert island (without giving up your job in town), Fire Island is the place.

The island has hotels for short-term visitors, but most vacationers own or rent houses. People tend to return each year to the town that suits them best. For the first timer, the choice may be difficult. The island has 3,800 homes distributed among 17 communities, each with a unique character. Saltaire, for example, has no restaurant or bar, but a summer camp for kids, two church-synagogues (they double), one grocery store and one resident doctor. It is small-town America.

A couple of miles east is its polar opposite, Ocean Beach. The largest town on the island, it has both permanent residents and hoards of families and other day-trippers who come to spend weekends.

Bordering a tiny rectangular park are restaurants and stores, bars and discos, and down the street, a police station--a reminder of the days when it was forbidden even to carry a soda in your hand in a public place. Although most of the old laws have been rescinded, Ocean Beach is still known to some as “the land of no.” There are no public restrooms here--or in any other community on the island, for that matter. Nevertheless, on a warm Saturday night, Ocean Beach looks like the East Side of New York, dropped in the middle of a huge sand dune.

If the singles scene is a weekend thing in Ocean Beach, at Kismet, Fair Harbor and Ocean Bay Park it is a continuous all-summer affair. Sharing the cost of renting makes it possible for those who couldn’t otherwise afford it to have a season at the beach. It also means communal eating, sleeping, partying and house cleaning with people whose only common interest may be a desire to get away from the city. Every summer brings more eager New Yorkers to the island anxiously wondering who their house mates will be this year.

One community--Point O’ Woods--keeps its gates locked to all but residents and their guests. Its families, many of them in the Social Register, live in large Victorian-era houses that give the village the appearance of having been frozen in time at the turn of the century. To keep it that way, renters and buyers must be approved by the owners association . . . which even restricts ferry access to Point O’ Woods by operating a private line.

On the east side of Point O’ Woods is the Sunken Forest, a remarkable parcel of Fire Island National Seashore. Behind high dunes, rolling paths penetrate a dense green thicket of primeval woodland. On even the hottest days, the depths of the forest are cool and damp. Black pines, cherries and junipers entwined with catbriar screen out the sun and hide foxes, raccoons, opossums and rabbits.

In clearings, white-tailed deer often stare tamely at visitors being led along the winding trails by National Park Service rangers. The tranquillity belies its history as a conduit for rum runners smuggling liquor to the mainland.

Fire Island is best known to many off-islanders for its gay community, Cherry Grove. For many years before their lifestyle was widely accepted, the residents of the Grove--many of them active in New York theater and arts--were, as they are now, proudly, defiantly and openly homosexual. The press that the town received sometimes made it appear that Cherry Grove was Fire Island. In fact, it’s one of the isle’s smaller communities, but it is certainly the most colorful. The spirit is high camp: Where else can you find Judy Garland Memorial Park, a restaurant called The Monster or a ferryboat named the “Fire Island Queen”? The Grove has Fire Island’s best restaurants and entertainment. Visitors from straight communities are welcome as long as they come with open minds.

Many other creative types have moved into elite homes hidden in the dense woodland covering Fire Island Pines, a half-mile east of the Grove. On Sunday afternoons, the narrow wooded walks swarm with beautiful people wearing perfect tans and the most expensive beachwear. They are heading for the tea dance at the Botel, where for three or four hours they will drink and dance and see and be seen. Later, long lines form on the dock for the ferries to Sayville and onward transportation to Manhattan, including the chartered bus which boards a ferry at Ocean Beach and prolongs the final weekend beach party until the last passengers step into the heat of New York City.

To say the night life in Fire Island is limited would not be overstating the case. Beyond Cherry Grove and Ocean Beach, there aren’t a lot of options. Many towns have weekend movies in the firehouse or town hall, but very few provide live entertainment. As a result, a special night out often means taking a taxi to a restaurant in a nearby town--a water taxi, that is. This is a small motorboat driven from town to town at top speed by a maniacal youth, who drops off one load of terrified passengers and picks up another. A one-way ride usually suffices, and the beach on weekend nights is crowded with people trudging home barefoot on the cool sand after dinner.

For some, Fire Island is picking wild blueberries in the morning for breakfast, or racing a Sunfish in the Sunday regatta, or dancing until daybreak at the Grove, or just lazing all day in the sun. But if I were to choose the activity that best expresses the feeling of Fire Island for me, it would be sitting on the beach in late afternoon.

The light changes then. Colors are deeper and the heat of the day dissipates quickly as cool air flows in from the ocean, chasing bathers home to supper. The sounds of wind and surf are eternal. In the moments before dusk, time hesitates, slows down and rests. It’s an invitation to sit with your back to the dunes, watch the gentle monotony of the waves and let go of the tensions of city living. It’s a suggestion that perhaps simple things are best.