Mattapoisett Town Beach and Silvershell Beach are open and ready for the Fourth of July and for the summer.

Unlike other nearby towns, Marion and Mattapoisett have been able to fully staff their town beaches with lifeguards. Marion is even beefing up staffing at Silvershell for Independence Day.

“It was definitely different finding them, but now I have a full staff,” Marion Acting Director of Recreation Scott Tavares said.

For the Fourth, Tavares said there will be one extra lifeguard on duty.

“I anticipate it will be a pretty busy weekend,” he said.

But staffing the beaches hasn’t come without its issues.

Mattapoisett Recreation Program Administrator Jane Finnerty said a core staff of lifeguards helped the town, despite a widespread shortage.

“It’s a national problem,” she said.

Even though Mattapoisett has enough staff to keep Town Beach guarded — the town even hired two new lifeguards this year — almost no newly certified lifeguards applied for the job.

Those newly certified guards would typically have been the ones who shadowed more experienced lifeguards, and taken over when senior guards needed time off. This year, Mattapoisett will have to make due without that extra staffing.

Finnerty blamed some of the problem on the lack of certification classes, which are hands-on by nature, during covid.

There was a three-month grace period for lifeguards to renew expired certifications during covid, but even that wasn’t enough for some Mattapoisett guards.

Finnerty said two of her experienced guards — one of which she noted is good enough to be able to teach certification classes of her own — had to retake the full certification course instead of the renewal course.

“It’s a hundreds of dollars difference between two courses,” she said.

Still, Finnerty said, “I’m good for the Fourth.”

She said between the anticipated rain and backyard parties, she doesn’t anticipate too large of crowds at Town Beach.

It’s the hotter days of the summer and special events like the Harbor Days triathlon, Finnerty said, when the beach really gets busy.

And when those days come, Finnerty’s new hires — both experienced, and one of whom is a lifeguard instructor — will be on the job.

“So I totally lucked out,” Finnerty said.

Marion is preparing for a busy summer at Silvershell, too, with the installation of new handicap accessible pathways.

“We will have handicap accessibility down there at the beach for the weekend,” Tavares said.

Now the only thing that stands in the way of a Fourth of July beach day in the Tri-Town is the rain.