Picture request

I’ve had a request for pictures of the beach. I haven’t gotten pictures of the beach yet, because yesterday I decided I wanted to, you know, swim and lie in the sand and swim some more and lie in the sand some more and then swim again and lie in the sand again. (We have beach umbrellas, and I have about zero tan, so I lie in the shade, thankyouverymuch.)

We got to the beach elevenish, got in the water at one minute past elevenish, or as long as it took us to set up. Stayed until lunchtime, went to the house for an hour or so, and then back to the beach until nearly six. The girls didn’t want to leave, and yet, by the time we got home, were awfully quiet and subdued.

I have high-sun supervisory duty. Heidi can’t be out in the sun between ten and two, so my job this week is to be the adult supervision during the afternoon. I think I’ve scared the girls enough about high tides and backwash and undertows and riptides. They’re showing very good ocean safety skills.

Okay, I didn’t really try to terrify them. I just explained to them what the waves can do to you, and taught them to respect the force that is so much fun to surf but that will turn on you in a moment. We all have the beach version of road rash (shell rash? sand rash?) from body surfing or surfing with a boogie board. The shelf of the NC beach is very different from the NJ beaches where I grew up. In New Jersey, there was a drop a short way from the shore, and you could generally pull out of the wave there and not get smashed up on the beach. There’s no such drop here, only belly-flopping on the shell fragments. And may I say: Ow.

The house really is ugly from the outside, but as I said, it’s decent inside. I love the third-floor deck, where you can sit and enjoy the ocean breeze day or night. The picture above was our view of the town from the deck last night, just before sunset. I had enough energy to take a picture, but not much more than that.

While I was watching the girls in the water yesterday, I kept wondering if that’s what my father used to do when he brought my brothers and me to the Jersey shore back in the day. But there were lifeguards there, and my father was from the school of hard knocks, so I’m thinking I’m a bit more paranoid than he was. Then again, there aren’t any lifeguards on this beach, and they’re not my kids, so perhaps I’m being a bit more careful for those reasons.

In any case, I find it easiest to watch the girls while in the water. So we swim together a lot.

Rain, rain, go away. I want to hit the beach today.