Beach Beach Beach

Four quick things after the first full day on the beach:

1. Cloudy, windy, and sixty degrees is a disorienting way to start your week on the beach. The weather expectations will make that sixty feel like fifty, and you'll forget how cold it is where you came from. Don't be ungrateful. "Bundle" up (long pants, long sleeves) and go out there.

2. But maybe don't pick that day to play the first round of golf you've played in four months. Or at least go to the driving range first. We lost six balls on the 18th hole alone. Not good. On a larger note, golf days like these (in terms of my performance, not the location, which, being a pitching wedge away from the Gulf, was pretty fantastic) continue to suggest to me that my skills at this particular game might have a relatively low ceiling. I do well at hustle-sprint-read-react-improvise sports, not stand-very-still-and-do-basically-the-same-thing-every-
time-while-thinking-carefully-about-it sports.

3. If you're stressed out or depressed or just having a bad day and the deep Zen peace of the beach at about five o'clock in the evening doesn't calm you down or chill you out, seek professional help. As I've mentioned, daytime on the beach is the big shiny headliner star of the show, and rightly so, what with all of the brilliant sunlight, balmy breezes and the like. But early evening, which I'm generally obsessed with, is about as relaxing as life gets. The wind dies down, the waves settle down, the crowds depart. Delightful.

4. Later in the week, there will be hiking! Packing of lunches! Checking of tide tables! Applying of suntan lotion! Thanks to the wonders of Google, I can show you our planned route. We are going to start at the house (X) and hope to get to the end of Pelican Island (Y).

I have no idea how far this is. I guess I could measure, but what fun would that be? The great thing about a beach hike is that when you decide you're halfway done, you just turn around and come back. You may have noticed a small problem with the proposed route, namely the stretch of non-beach (Z) preventing us from getting to Pelican Island. As we discovered on a scouting walk yesterday, however, that gap is no longer there. The friendly gentleman at the golf course told us that in just the last thirty days, Pelican Island has finally consummated its long flirtation with the bigger, main island. So at all times other than high tide, you can walk right onto Pelican Island (married name: Pelican Island-Peninsula). These are the wonders of coastal geography, wonders that would scare the willies out of me if I were a local businessman or home owner. From a business standpoint, you never know when the third hole of your golf course might fall into the Gulf, or, and this has actually happened, when your pay-per-access fishing pier will find itself embarrassingly surrounded by the sandy stretch resulting from Pelican Island-Peninsula's nuptials. Oops. As a homeowner, you never know when the fifty yards of beach out your front door will decide to gradually become negative-one yards of beach, necessitating that your house be expensively lifted off its stilts and moved back from impending disaster. (I wonder how much that costs. Dig new pilings, relocate utilities, detach house from current pilings, move it with cranes, jacks, trucks, etc., stick it on new pilings, re-attach utilities, repair damage from the move. I'm thinking between 20k and 50k). Oh, and beach erosion is really one of the more minor concerns, all things considered.

It should be a good hike. It will be interesting to see the beach from a thousand yards offshore. Also, it might be interesting to learn how to signal a Coast Guard rescue vessel if we judge the tides wrong. I'm sure dad will bring a flashlight.