Vacationers Enjoy Beaches in Blazing Temps

By MADDY VITALE A furnace or a stove were some of the descriptors for the scorching air as temperatures soared into the high 90s at the shore Monday afternoon. George Groves, of Bensalem, Pa., simply put it like this, “hot,” as he swooshed and coasted on his skim board alongside his son, Jeff, and his 17-year-old grandson, John, along the water’s edge on the 34th Street Beach. The family of 14 rented homes for the week in Ocean City and spent their Monday enjoying the 75-degree ocean temps and some breezes. “It’s a really hot day at the beach, but in the water it’s great,” George Groves said. Like the Groves crew, other beachgoers clung to the shore line, just above where their beach gear would get soaked, for some relief from the sweltering heat. Stephanie Sokorai, center, in dark bathing suit, her sister, Jennifer Cipparone, in red bathing suit, and their children, spend the day in the ocean. Stephanie Sokorai, of Shamong, N.J., her five children, her sister, Jennifer Cipparone, and her three children, took to the ocean without hesitation. “We have been coming down to Ocean City for vacation for 16 years,” Stephanie noted. But Monday was memorable for high temps, she acknowledged. And being near or in the water was the only smart thing to do, she said. Sokorai summed up the feeling of being on the beach as opposed to being near the water. “A drastic difference. The heat is oppressive on the beach,” she said. Sokorai’s 14-year-old son, Declan, added to his mother’s thoughts of the benefit of being near the ocean. “The water feels cool,” he said. A thermometer at Sturdy Savings Bank reads 96 degrees in the afternoon in Ocean City. While vacationers took to the water to find relief, dipped their toes in or dove in, or sat near the ocean, others, like mother and daughter duo, Pat Shakin and Beth Vandusen, both of Egg Harbor Township, sat in the middle of the beach. But they came prepared. Sitting under a blue, flowered cabana that seemed to give just the right amount of protection from the blazing heat, the two, who have a summer home in Ocean City, noted that there was a cool breeze blowing perfectly under the cabana. “It’s very breezy. It is very nice,” Shakin said. Vandusen added, “We always bring it, but don’t always put it up. But on a day like today, it went up.” Pat Shakin and her daughter, Beth Vandusen, take cover from the sun for some beach time.