The woman who vanished Sunday after being swept into Jamaica Bay was wading in waist-deep water in an area where swimming is apparently not allowed, police sources said Monday.
Anna Clarke, of Far Rockaway, told her mother she would be back soon when she and her high school sweetheart hubby, Dayle, headed to Bayswater Point State Park in Queens, less than a mile from home, family said.
Clarke, 35, was in the water with her husband near Mott Avenue and Point Breeze Place when she was suddenly overcome by the water current at around 5:30 p.m., cops said.
“She was walking in the waist-deep water with her husband. She tried to walk across the channel but started having trouble,” a police source told The Post.
A good Samaritan at the 12-acre park tried to save Clarke but was unsuccessful, police said.
The man grabbed her hand, but the current was too strong as it pulled Clarke under, sources said.
Grieving relatives gathered Monday at Clarke’s nearby home.
“She just loved life. She loved to travel. She loved the beach,” Clarke’s cousin Marceline Wright, 52, said.
“She was the sweetest person.”
Wright said that Clarke and her husband of five years had recently gotten back from Jamaica.
“My daughter spoke to her yesterday. She was happy and excited,” Wright said.
Clarke’s husband, the cousin said, is “numb” as rescue crews scoured the waters for Clarke again on Monday after searching for hours Sunday night to no avail.
Wright said that it wasn’t Clarke’s first time in the water at the park, which is made up of beachfront, wetlands and woodlands.
“They should’ve put a sign there that says no swimming. I didn’t see anything there,” Wright said. “I didn’t know it was dangerous.”
Clarke’s distraught mother, Miriam, said she saw Clarke and Dayle — who both work in marketing — before they left for the park Sunday.
“They were both leaving and I said, ‘Where are you going?’ and they said, ‘We’ll soon be back.’ ”
Miriam said of the park’s shore, “The way I understand, that’s an area that people can walk across any time. But freak accidents happen, especially in the water.”
A rep for the state’s Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation did not respond to multiple requests on whether swimming is allowed at the park.
Additional reporting by Larry Celona