I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours on patrol with Captain Maria on a lovely Saturday morning July 25th along the Western shore from Breezy Point (Zone 14) to just below the cove near Picnic Island (Zone 15). We covered grids 1369 through 2137 overall ... and I learned a ton!
We saw in abundance pipewort, floating heart, pondweed, burrweed, pickerl, loads of lillies -- plus as bonus a couple of duck families and a solo turtle sunning him/herself.
I thoroughly enjoyed Maria's instruction and tips. AND, we hit the motherload near the end of our patrol with an enormous carpet of aquatic moss that covered the area of a football field to the depth of three feet or more in spots we tested. **Maria has posted separately about this finding in the "Plants" section of the blog.**
Nice photos Steve - your second photo looks like Floating Pondweed. Look in the plants folder and then in the post for Pondweeds with Large Floating
Leaves. Its the plant at the bottom of the post.