Camping out in the Sound

By John Nickerson
Staff Writer

August 7, 2006

NORWALK -- As thunder bolts lit up the sky above Norwalk one night last month, an intrepid band of middle-schoolers gathered around a campfire on Shea Island about a mile off Manresa Island and talked about their day.

As the boomers echoed over the dark harbor and a light rain began to fall, the nine SoundWaters Schooner Camp kids and five educators from the environmental education center in Stamford broke their "closing circle" and prepared to bed down for the night on the island's south beach.

As is often the case this year, the campers had the 45-acre island to themselves. They put out their half-dozen tents above the high-tide mark on a bed of pebbles and shells.

"It is refreshing to see the waves and wind," said camper Tyler Smith of New Canaan, 12. "I like it a lot. It's fun, especially when you have a good person to bunk with."

Shea, purchased by the city of Norwalk in 1960, is a popular daytime picnic and swimming spot, but this season's wet weather has deterred overnight campers.

Before SoundWaters skipper Shane Walden landed his campers on the island, he had canceled two earlier overnight trips to Shea Island because of rain.

The scenic views of the Sound and Long Island from Shea's south beach are open for anyone to enjoy, so long as they have a boat or kayak to get there.

Norwalk residents pay $5 for each night out, and out-of-towners pay a $15 registration fee plus a $5 camping fee.

Along with 16 camping spots that circle Shea Island, the city offers four tent sites on 7-acre Grassy Island, about two-thirds of a mile away on the other side of Chimon Island.

As a few of the campers turned rocks along the beach watching Asian shore crabs skitter out of their hiding places, Evan Turiano said he always enjoys the island. The 12-year-old from New Canaan was making his third overnight trip with SoundWaters.

"After my first time, I didn't think I would learn anything new. But each year, there is a whole new crew that teach you a new variety of things," Evan said.

Two nights later, over a martini at dusk, Norwalk resident Robert Scrofani, one of a half-dozen kayakers who for five years has made an annual overnight trip to the island, said he likes the disconnection at Shea.

Sitting on a piece of a dock that drifted up the beach, Scrofani said, "It's a chance to escape the planet for the weekend. For one night it's just total relaxation and the rest of the world doesn't exist."

Scrofani and his group, who pushed off Calf Pasture Beach two days later with a Coleman stove shoe-horned inside a sea kayak, were getting ready to sit down to a dinner of Moroccan lemon chicken.

Carol Heinzelman of Norwalk, who was on her first trip with the group, said she was awed by the beauty and isolation of the island.

"I didn't have to look at my watch all day," she said. "It's just beautiful."

The only thing Heinzelman and Scrofani didn't like were the outhouses.

"They are disgusting," Scrofani said.

The island wasn't always known as Shea. It first was called Ram Island, because it was used by a sheep herder to separate ewes and rams. In 1971, it was renamed in honor of Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Daniel Shea of Norwalk, who was killed in the Vietnam War.

Rules in the park prohibit dogs, alcohol, glass containers, fireworks, hunting above the high-water mark, or cutting or injuring live trees, shrubs or animals.

A variety of wildlife exists on Shea Island, which is sandwiched between Sheffield and Chimon islands, two jewels in the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge.

On a slow cruise around the island, several egrets can be spotted in the trees on the north side. On a walk across the island, a set of bleached white bones, possibly belonging to a dog, lie at the base of a tree.

Around the tide line on the north and west shores, thousands of fiddler crabs have burrowed holes in the mud. If you stand in one spot for a few minutes, they come hesitantly out of their holes and resume their existence as if you weren't there.

Twelve-year-old Kimmy Loop of Stamford, the only girl on the SoundWaters camp-out, said at first she felt homesick. But that passed.

"I like sleeping over and camping," Kimmy said.