Author: Brian Bogardus (Aiken, SC USA)
Website: Click here
Contact: Long Island Sound, US
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Categories: [discovery]  [heaven]  

Is it shared experience? Trips to the shore on vacations in our childhood. TV and movie images of happy, handsome people frolicking at water’s edge. Or is it just that so many of us live in places close enough to the ocean or a large lake, that access is simple.

Is it primordial? Maybe most of us live in places close to the shore because we are hard wired that way. Some scientists speculate that all life began in the oceans, with after millennia, mutant fish first breathing air and then replacing fins with limbs to crawl ashore. Or is it that the sound of the breaking surf is so reminiscent of the sound of our mothers heartbeat while we were in the womb. Whatever the reason, I know I love the beach.

Growing up in Connecticut, just 30 miles from the Long Island Sound meant numerous visits on summer weekends. I have fond memories of hunting for shells, burying my siblings up to their necks in sand, trying to body surf and making castles that would disappear at the next high tide.

Early adulthood was spent in Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club and because of the large quantities of water required to float warships, I was even closer to the beach. In the off hours a lot of time was spent working on my tan, swimming in the salt water or sailing on friends’ boats from Maryland to Virginia to Florida.

Now in full-fledged middle age, having seen JAWS way too many times and listened to the smiling anchors of the Weather Channel, warn with quiet concern in their voices, of dangerous rip currents at every low pressure system, I’m not too big a fan of swimming in the ocean anymore. Having had a couple of small spots of my forehead removed using a controlled bit of frostbite, in what the dermatologist called pre-cancerous areas, I have also given up sunbathing as a leisure activity. I still love the beach.

Where I live is about a three hour drive to almost anywhere along the coast of South Carolina, from exciting and busy Myrtle Beach to the quiet, peaceful Edisto Beach, so a weekend trip is an easy thing to do. But now I limit myself to early morning and late afternoon walks, holding hands with the woman I love, ankle deep in the surf. Mostly, I just catch up on reading year-old pulp mysteries in paperback or hardcovers from the bargain shelf, as I just sit on the balcony cooled, even in the heat of summer, by the sea breeze with the crashing surf as my soundtrack.

I know that if I was in the financial position to do so, I would own a home right on the beach. It would be built eight feet in the air on stilts to allow unfettered access to the breeze, the view and sounds of the ocean. It would also have a short weathered boardwalk over the dunes (to protect them) that would give access to my private bit of sandy paradise. I would live there year round. If a hurricane came and did to my home what the tides did to the sand castles of my youth, I would rebuild, because for whatever reason, I am drawn to the beach.

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