Assateague Island

Henry Seim of Parkville says the Weather Page "sometimes gives different ocean temperatures and wave heights between Ocean City and Assateague Island. How could that be when the island is only about 1,000 feet south of Ocean City?" Wave height data for both come from a data buoy 15 miles off Fenwick so predictions should agree unless forecasters tweak one. O.C. water temperatures are measured several feet below the same buoy. Assateague's come from Chincoteague Bay, 17 miles south of the inlet.

Mabel J. Cohen, who with her husband helped have Assateague Island designated a national park, died Sunday of cardiovascular disease at Oak Crest Village in Parkville. The former Snow Hill resident was 95. She was born Mabel Jones and raised in Hurlock, and at 16 began nurse's training at a tuberculosis hospital in Sabillasville. While at the hospital, she met Dr. Paul Cohen, whom she married in 1936. In 1937, the couple moved to Salisbury when Dr. Cohen was named superintendent of the Pine Bluff Tuberculosis Sanatorium.

The pilgrimage, a procession of vehicles stuffed with lights, music, tents, wood, geodesic domes, glittery costumes, fire-spinning equipment, giant sculptures and other oddities too surreal to be named, began yesterday. The largest group of seekers drove from Maryland to Delaware. But they also came from New York, Massachusetts and as far away as England for what various participants described as a temporary autonomous zone, somewhere between anarchy and an intentional community, an escape from commodification, a party, a burn, a radically expressive space and a life-affirming event.

Joseph W. Fehrer, a noted Eastern Shore environmentalist who founded the Worcester Environmental Trust with his wife and helped preserve the Pocomoke River and Nassawango Creek, died of Parkinson's disease Tuesday at Deer's Head Hospital Center in Salisbury. He was 88. "They were a prime force in the evolution of an environmental conscience on the Lower Shore," said Bruce Nichols, an agricultural conservationist and U.S. Department of Agriculture worker. "Employees in government agencies often had their hands tied by politics, but the Fehrers could make noise."

ASSATEAGUE ISLAND - It's a bright, dazzlingly blue afternoon on this arid claw of land stretching beside the Atlantic Ocean, and Allison Turner has been slogging for hours through salt marshes and loblolly pines, a rifle slung over her shoulder. Suddenly, she aims at a pony with a shaggy reddish coat munching grass near a dune. A pop sounds as she fires a 4-inch orange dart that pierces the horse's haunch. For the past decade, the National Park Service has been injecting contraceptives into the mares among this herd of 160 wild horses on the Assateague Island National Seashore in an attempt to control the population.

Investigators are trying to determine why a Baltimore woman's body was found several miles from where a sport utility vehicle crashed on the beach at Assateague Island. Jennifer Holly Ashe, 24, of Baltimore was found dead Monday on the north end of the island, near the Ocean City inlet, authorities said yesterday. She was found about five miles north of where the body of her companion, Adam Starkey, 25, of Cockeysville, was found, said Robert Fudge, chief of visitor services for Assateague Island National Seashore.

IN BALTIMORE COUNTY Assateague rangers search for Cockeysville woman ASSATEAGUE ISLAND - Park rangers were looking yesterday for a 24-year-old Cockeysville woman last seen with a man whose body was found on an Assateague Island beach early Sunday. Surfers found the man's body near a Hummer mired in the sand. Park rangers think the driver was driving off-road when the Hummer crashed and flipped over. Missing is Jennifer Holly Ashe, 24, of Cockeysville. Police said that according to witnesses, Ashe was last seen leaving to go driving with the man who was found dead.

ASSATEAGUE ISLAND - If you're making family getaway plans for some surf fishing or a trip on an Ocean City head boat this year, think about adding one more activity to the schedule. The new $10 million Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge visitor center at the Virginia end of the island, about two miles from Chincoteague, is an educational and environmental knockout. Named in honor of the late Virginia congressman Herbert Bateman, the building is the dazzling centerpiece of the 37-mile-long barrier island that is the Grand Central Station of Atlantic bird travel.

For many people, it just wouldn't be summer without a trip to Ocean City. Every weekend, sun- and fun-seekers travel by carloads over the Bay Bridge, east on U.S. 50 and across the drawbridge over the bay, which leads to North Division Street, right in the heart of O.C. But wait. Back up about a mile west on Route 50. Instead of crossing that last bridge into town, hang a right on Route 611 and follow it until the roadway ends. There you'll find yourself at Assateague Island -- a different kind of beach retreat.

In Worcester Count Body of boater missing since Monday is recovered ASSATEAGUE ISLAND - The body of a Berlin man who fell overboard when a catamaran capsized Monday night in stiff winds was recovered yesterday in Newport Bay by search crews from the Maryland Natural Resources Police and U.S. Coast Guard. Dan Prengaman, 42, was sailing with two other Eastern Shore men between Newport and Sinepuxent bays off Assateague Island when the mishap occurred about 8 p.m., tossing him and Jeff Gayan, also of Berlin, into the water, police said.