The best and worst parts of being on the beach all day
CAPE MAY POINT — Being a lifeguard comes with the perks of summer but also includes some not-so-glamorous aspects.
The women and men who protect the beaches in South Jersey weighed in this summer on why being a lifeguard is the best job a person could have, even if it comes with a few downsides.
“I love just being by the water and communicating ocean safety and the importance of respecting the ocean, as much as it is about enjoying the ocean, and spreading that in the community,” Avalon Beach Patrol lifeguard Alyssa Sittineri said, adding she also loves protecting people.
The six-year guard from Cape May Court House acknowledges the downside as well.
“I think training is difficult, as it should be, but I think what is really difficult is just sitting there on days that aren’t the perfect beach days, so early in the season, when it’s super windy and cold and you don’t necessarily want to be there,” Sittineri said, “but knowing that it’s all worth it and you’re there to protect the people.”
Sittineri is starting a teaching job in her hometown this fall. As Avalon Lt. Danielle Smith puts it, that’s the teach-and-beach combo— a nine-month job that allows the other three months for guarding.
“I think the best part of the job is camaraderie, the brotherhood and sisterhood that you gain throughout this experience,” said Smith, of Wilmington, Del. “It’s fabulous. It’s an amazing job where you’re protecting people, but at the same time you’re making friendships for life.”
This is the 10th summer for her, a health and physical education teacher at St. Mark’s High School in Wilmington, right by the University of Delaware. Her family has a house in Stone Harbor “and a bunch of my friends were trying out so I decided to try out. I said I’ll give it a go and see what happens. I made it. My plan was to stay for one year and here I am 10 years later and the first female lieutenant (on the ABP).”
She agreed with Sittinieri about the not-so-pleasant times to be on the beach.
“Like Alyssa said, the nasty days. People, when they picture lifeguards, they picture sunny, beautiful beach days, but we’re always there even when it’s really bad out, when it’s storming, we’re still watching the beaches,” Smith said. “You’re wet, you’re cold, it’s windy — those are challenging, but you know the better days are ahead.”
Longtime lifeguard Dan Casey, who is now a deputy chief on the Ocean City Beach Patrol, said there are a lot of great aspects about being a lifeguard.
“There are so many. Wow. As a guard I would say you get paid to be on the beach. The feeling of protecting the bathers while making sure they all go home safe,” he said.
“We are ambassadors to the city. We might be the only city employee that a person comes in contact with when they come to Ocean City. As that, we take pride in making sure their experience is the best and we make them feel like they want to come back and have a good time here,” Casey said. “If we’re the only person they come into contact with, that could make or break their experience. We’re giving them that positivity, that sense of, ‘Oh, they care about us.’ That means a lot because we’re here to serve the beach patrons.”
He expanded on that aspect, referring to a human resources professional who visited Ocean City around 2016 and 2017 and compared a week there to a week at Disney World.
“You pay the same amount, so if our competition is Disney World, we have to make sure we are on our game because something we say, ‘Hope to see you back here’ or ‘good to see you again,’ makes those connections with the beach patrons and that might be all they need to think, ‘Oh, I love this place.’
“A smile, one Band-aid, hearing, ‘you treated my kid with such respect,’ from there, it just keeps going up,” Casey said.
He also sees the positive aspects of being an administrator.
“The best part is making sure the guards are taken care of and feel a sense of belonging and want to be here. They are the front line,” he said. “We want to support them and make sure they’re having the best time because they’re working the beaches, seeing all the people, making the saves. We want to make sure they have the tools to succeed.”
As for the downside, he laughed.
“The toughest part of the job is the sun. The sun is brutal and keeps on coming.”
On a more serious note, he added, “the toughest part would probably be the beach patrons that need some extra care, the ones who might not be having the best time. We want to make them have the best time. We want them to feel like they want to be here and have a good time and not want to just go home.”
Casey said the rescues are another difficult part of the job.
“Sometimes they can be a little scary or in tough spots, but our guards are trained so well they are able to get all of the rescues and make sure they (the bathers) are all safe,” he said.
The beach is a big reason why Mimi McCabe, a captain on the OCBP who grew up in Linwood and graduated from Mainland Regional High School, returns to this summer job.
“My favorite thing is being at the beach,” she said. “I grew up here. I come back every year. I live in a different state now and I still come back for the summer because it is truly the best summer job you could ever have.
“You get to sit on the beach and even though it is a very serious job, you get to hang out with your friends. You have a fun day on the beach every single day,” McCabe said.
There does come a point when it becomes a grind, she added, but that doesn’t last.
“Honestly, sometimes you kind of get burned out. Every day it is the same thing and you have some tough days. The repetitiveness gets old,” McCabe said. “It hits around mid-summer or the first of August. You go, ‘just power through this and everything is going to be great for the rest of the summer.’ I’ve been working since Memorial Day and a lot of the guards started the first day of May. Six days a week, everyone gets tired.”
Nineteen-year-old Emma DiMario, a fourth-year guard on the Cape May Beach Patrol, enjoys her job.
“I live with my best friends that I met on the job, so I would say that is pretty cool. I do love to train all the time. It is fun during the day to just talk to people all day,” DiMario said about the interaction with beach-goers.
The long days can be tough.
“It’s pretty grueling hours because you’re normally training before work and then we at least work six days a week or even seven, so it can get a lot of time under the sun,” she said, adding, “but it’s only three months.”
The Louisiana State University student studies architecture and, like many of the other guards interviewed, competes in the summer lifeguard competitions or supports the athletes who do.
She, like some of the others interviewed, competed at the Cape May Point Beach Patrol Women’s Lifeguard Challenge, a triathlon of running on the sand, paddleboarding and swimming, or were there to support the athletes who did.)
McNamee is from Philadelphia and became a guard because “friends of friends got me into it.” She is a nursing student at Holy Family University in Philadelphia, where she is on the track and field and cross country teams.
Fellow Wildwood Beach Patrol guard Riley McDade, from Philadelphia, is now in her seventh summer. She came to be on the WBP because “family friends are chiefs and lieutenants and things like that and they convinced me to come out after I finished the junior lifeguard program.”
The best part of the job for her is “helping people,” she said. “One of my favorite things is that you can tell when it is someone’s first time on the beach and you get to help them out, tell them things they might not know.” Other good parts? “Obviously the weather, being in the water, getting tan.”
McDade, a student at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, said the toughest part was going from junior lifeguard to senior lifeguard. The transition, she was, was definitely hard.
“There was a lot more stress on the job and so finding that fun and the joy gets a little tough when it gets stressful, but it’s still there,” she said. “It’s the best job in the world.”
Sisters Grace and Meredith Steele, two of three triplets and Ocean City High School graduates, have a combined 17 years on the Upper Township Beach Patrol. They are also on the teach-and-beach track.
Grace is a lieutenant who does resource and training for the patrol. The eight-year veteran said she loves “being able to be on the beach all day. I love getting to train and spend time in the ocean and overall I just have a great time working there.”
“The tough parts,” she said, include “being in the sun a lot and being a lieutenant, just making sure that our training is up to date and we’re being the best lifeguards we can be.”
Grace is starting a teaching position this fall in the Upper Township School District.
Meredith, who begins a teaching position this fall at Cape May City Elementary School, is in her ninth year and second as a lieutenant on the UTBP.
“Some of my favorite parts are running the junior guard program. It’s cool to get younger guards excited about being a lifeguard, getting excited about what we do,” she said. “I like working out with our younger guards, swimming, paddleboarding. It’s just fun to be out there in the ocean in the summer.”
One not-so-glamorous part, she said, is “making sure we’re on top of our training and certifications for advanced first aid and all that.”
Other than that? “The paperwork side of things,” Meredith added, laughing.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
