On the Beach 120903

On the Beach 120903

It had gotten to be about 3 in the afternoon and RS and I decided to go for a swim. We put on our suits, shirts and hats. RS lotioned up with SP something while I got the beach recliners. Off we went.

It's the end of Labor Day and it was a blue sky day that was not too hot. There was a pretty strong breeze off the ocean and we could see thunderstorms forming inland about where Yulee is. As we walked down the walkway to the sand I thought a little about why the breeze seems mostly to come from the ocean in the day time and the thunderstorms initially form inland.

We set up the recliners, took a seat and relaxed. There is something nice about sitting in an ocean breeze in a warm sun. A lot of people seem to do this. After a few minutes I said to RS, "Here we said we would never live in Florida and we would never roast ourselves in the sun."

"Yes, we did." she smiled at me.

Well, obviously we had changed our minds.

As I sat there looking at the ocean I thought about how I used to sit on the beach as a kid and wonder what lay directly across the sea from me. Maybe if I squinted long enough, I could see whatever it was. So, I said this to RS. She replied, "I've never thought about that." That made me wonder even more. So soon I will research this topic and all of us will know.

RS' hat has a wide brim and she had to hold it in the strong breeze. It flew off a couple of times revealing the label. "Madagascar!" she commented. I knew it couldn't be Madagascar on the other side of the ocean since Madagascar is in the Indian Ocean and we are on the Atlantic. This made me say, "What?"

"Madagascar is where my hat was made ,,, and it's hand-made raffia." I didn't have the faintest idea what raffia was until I looked it up as I write this blog post. It's a type of palm tree native to Africa and Madagascar. It's really strange how a palm from Africa spends its final days among the palms of Florida. Now I wonder if the Florida palms can be woven into wide-brimmed hats.

But, back to the beach.

Two young couples were on the beach about 50 feet from us. One had a baby who was just starting to walk. We watched as the father struggled to put up a beach umbrella. He drove the post into the sand, then opened the umbrella, which immediately turned inside out. I don't think he was a local since this seemed to be the first time he had ever done this. After about 5 minutes of struggling, he decided that the umbrella wasn't needed after all. I noted in my head that anyone with a standing beach umbrella on a windy day had to be an experienced beach person.

Once the beach umbrella decision was made, the two guys were ready to fish. I don't know anything about surf fishing. A couple of times on walks I have asked surf fishermen (almost all people fishing in the surf are men) if they had caught anything. The reply was almost always, "yes, a few whiting." So, I just Googled whiting and here is more than you will want to know about surf fishing for whiting in Florida.

About this time I was ready to test the water. I knew from my research on weather in Fernandina Beach that the water temperature was warm. RS confirmed my research as we walked into the water. "The water is warm," she said.

One of the things I have noticed about the beach is that it changes. Of course, the tides go up and down, but the contours of the beach change. I bought a really helpful book about Florida beaches at the Book Loft downtown. It's called Florida's Living Beaches by Blair and Dawn Witherington. This book explained to me in understandable terms about how beaches work. Anyway, I was not surprised to feel an undulating bottom. This made walking in the breakers kind of difficult and at the same time fun. We didn't know whether the next step was up or down. Sometimes, I towered over RS and other times she was was an Amazon.

It was a four-breaker day. This is a term I have developed for identifying the ocean conditions. I count the number of waves with white caps that I can see at one time perpendicular to the shoreline. Four at a time is pretty strong. RS had already looked down at the lifeguard stand on Main beach and seen a red flag. We couldn't agree on what that meant so this is another topic to research.

After refreshing ourselves in the surf, we again sat on the recliners and looked at the waves and people walking by. Then, we got hot again and RS was ready to go in the water. We did and laughed as the waves washed over us. While we were jumping breakers one of the fishermen walked past us with a nod and a smile. I watched as he walked to the last sandbar and with all his strength cast the bait into the ocean. Then, he walked back to shore and put his pole in white holder that I think had been made from some plastic piping. Then he sat down. Fishing didn't seem like such tough work.

Eventually, both RS and I had enough water and returned to our recliners. The afternoon was growing late and I suggested that we go inside and clean up. This we did. There is a story I will tell you about how to clean yourself when you leave the beach, but that will be for another time.

-CR
Photos by RS