Time and tide were running out on a recent Sunday morning when Nancy Solomon, executive director of Long Island Traditions in Port Washington, boarded Alan Pidherney's fishing boat at Sea Breeze Park on Freeport's Nautical Mile. They had a brief window to make a round trip to Pidherney's bay house on Middle Island, a patch of marsh in a section of the Western Bays north of Lido Beach, before low tide risked impact with a sandbar.