By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Baking. Broiling. Blistering.
Scorching. Sizzling. Sweltering.
Ugh, you get the picture. It was oppressively hot Saturday as a heat wave pushed temperatures well into the 90s at the Jersey Shore and the “real feel” index made it seem like 105 to 110 degrees with the humidity factored in.
However, cousins Luke McHale, 7, and Michael DiBabbo, 7, were barely breaking a sweat. They were talking like it was an autumn or spring day.
“It feels like 59 today,” Luke exclaimed.
“Nah, maybe 60,” Michael responded.
Luke’s father, Kevin McHale, and his grandfather, Mike McHale, burst out in laughter. The boys were so cool because they were taking a swim in the tranquil lagoon next to the Sea Isle City municipal marina.
In Sea Isle, tens of thousands of people fled to the lagoons, back bays and the ocean to beat the heat with a dip in the water.
With the ocean water temperature a relatively chilly 68 degrees, there were even some complaints.
“It’s freezing right now,” joked Andre Rodriguez, a Philadelphian who is vacationing in Sea Isle with his family.
Rodriguez, an EMT who is intimately familiar with the dangers of heat stroke, thought of how hot it was in Philadelphia on Saturday and gave thanks he was at the Jersey Shore.
“It would be very hot right now because there’s no ocean,” he said of Philly. “Maybe 110 degrees right now. That’s what it would feel like. Just terrible.”
Rodriguez stood on a jam-packed beach at 40th Street watching his 6-year-old son, Mason, and 3-year-old daughter, Mia, playing in the surf with their cousin, Joycelyn Olvera-Lopez.
“It’s cool. I like the sand. I like finding things,” Mason said while holding up a few miniature crabs he had dug out of the beach.
A little ways down the beach, Tina Belbin and her best friend, Nicole Scirrotto, both of West Deptford, N.J., had parked their chairs at water’s edge and were enjoying a slight ocean breeze.
“I feel like a million dollars,” Scirrotto said.
Belbin and Scirrotto were at the shore with a group of friends and family. Even while sitting next to the ocean, Belbin still felt the heat.
“It feels like 105,” she said.
At 2:30 p.m., the temperature was 93 degrees in Sea Isle. On Sea Isle’s Promenade, Lauren Carlino, of Austin, Texas, and her friend, Anna Duff, of Doylestown, Pa., were snacking on a frozen fruit bowl that they had bought at the Juice Pod.
Carlino, making sure to keep her 2-year-old daughter, Elle, in the shade, was surprised by the steamy weather when she arrived at the Jersey Shore for her vacation.
“We’re from Austin, Texas, and we thought we were going to escape the heat by coming here,” she said.
Her frozen fruit bowl provided some temporary relief from the heat.
“It’s nice and cool. But it’s melting real fast,” Carlino noted.
Kathy McFarland, a Sea Isle beach tag inspector, sought cover from the searing sun under an umbrella. She had a chance to talk with hundreds of people about the heat as they made their way to the beach.
“Somebody said that when they were driving down the Parkway, it was 100 degrees,” McFarland said. “It’s supposed to be even hotter Sunday. It makes you really appreciate air-conditioning.”
Or a dip in the water. Remember Luke McHale and Michael DiBabbo, the 7-year-old cousins who were cooling off with a swim near the Sea Isle marina?
“It feels great. I like going underwater,” Michael said.
Luke flashed a thumbs-up sign to give his approval.
Luke’s father, Kevin McHale, of Upper Township, grew up in Sea Isle. His father, Mike McHale, is a former Sea Isle mayor who served on the Sea Isle Beach Patrol before entering politics.
“It’s much cooler here,” Kevin McHale said as he paddled around in a kayak next to Luke and Michael. “That’s one of the things so great with being so close to the water. All you have to do is jump in and get cool.
