(Editor’s Note: The following is a series on the men and women who have spent their summers protecting all those who came to Ocean City for fun and safe vacation.)
OCEAN CITY – Frank Sharkey grew up in Belfast in Northern Ireland and was at university there between 1979 and 1983. He had worked in 1981 in Wildwood, N.J., and when he went back to the US the following summer, he decided to go a bit further south.
Sharkey said he literally just picked Ocean City on the map, because it looked like a good-sized town and that there should be work available. On his second day, he got a job at Angelo’s Italian restaurant on 28th street working as a dishwasher. He could get a meal each night he worked as well. Life was good.
“I lived with my friend Eamon, who was a runner just like me,” he said. “We heard about a try-out for the lifeguards in a few days’ time, so we thought we’d have a go. My swimming was reasonable; his was better. There was probably about 20 trying-out that day at the Inlet. Our first task was to swim from the rocks to the pier and then into the beach. It couldn’t be that hard, I thought.”
An officer with a mildly southern drawl, (who turned out to be Captain Schoepf) announced that he didn’t like earrings or any kind of jewelry.
“There’s fish out there, that would just love a bit of gold to nip on,” he recalled Schoepf saying. “And some of them are bigger than you are.”
There was a strong current that was unfortunately going against us, but that didn’t stop the test. Off we went, and after about five minutes of swimming, Sharkey could still see the rockpile to his left, after another 10 minutes it was now, actually in front on his left.
“I was going backwards towards the Inlet,” Sharkey said. “The last thing I remember was that there was about 15 of us picked up by the Coast Guard. Apparently only five people broke the current to complete the swim and got to move onto the next stage. The rest of us were told to come back again if we wanted to have another go.”
Eamon passed, and on his first day of work, he arrived home with a suntan kit in a box, sweats, gear and revealed that he would be getting paid about twice what Sharkey was earning. Sharkey trained twice a day for swimming for the next week, re-did the test and got it.
“The OCBP was a wonderful adventure in my life,” he said. “I met lots of great people, and had some fantastic summers there. We were paid to train and be in the best shape possible while doing our job. This was also the time that Captain Schoepf was gearing the patrol for national and international guarding competitions. He wanted to show the world that the OCBP was a major force. As a runner, I was able to compete for the patrol and it only added to the adventure. We got to travel and race in both Beach lifeguard competitions and open running events. There were phenomenal athletes of all sorts on the patrol, as well as a range of characters that would make a playwright jealous. I made many friends, and stories to tell. There is no doubt that it has profoundly influenced my life. I just smile when I think about it.”
Sharkey is now back in Belfast with his wife Geraldine (“who spent a summer in Ocean City too, working at Trimper’s,” he said.) and his three children. He’s still running and enjoying life.