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I just came back from a family vacation at the beach. Will someone please explain the beach to me?"
An Ironman triathlon is, shall we say, a day at the beach compared getting to the beach from the beach parking lot carrying beach umbrella, beach towels, beach toys, beach bags, and a beach picnic in a beach cooler the size of a Manhattan studio apartment.
I consulted my wife who had spent two weeks Googling “beach” to make sure we had enough beach stuff to carry to the beach from the beach parking lot.
She said walking in the sand dunes environmentally degrades the sand. Sand being ground-up rocks, you’d think sand is about as environmentally degraded as things in the environment get.
She also said beach grass in the sand dunes is home to deer ticks, even though a crowded beach is an odd place for ticks to look for deer.
Another memory I have of youthful fondness for the beach concerns tiny bikinis. Not anymore. Please, you leviathans, don’t wear tiny bikinis. No, what am I saying? Please, you leviathans, don’t take them off! (read more)
31 comments:
Too damned many people at the beaches on the East Coast. And, you actually have to pay to walk on to most of the beaches.
And, yes, the fat is everywhere.
Sittin' here watchin' Mike (the commie) and Mike (the other one) and what do you know - Joe Torre was inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Oh, wait - he was on the - never mind - shouldn't have brought that up.
Aw, sweet Joe. Watch his expression.
Going to the beach is a schlep. I've been wanting to get a large thick umbrella, but that's heavy!
I want to plan minimally, really, but you at least need a thick-material umbrella if you're going to stay a couple or more hours, small cooler, sunscreen, beach blanket, beach chair, water float...what have I forgotten?
...what have I forgotten?
A couple of doobies.
Doobies are pretty easy to schlep!
I love a good beach. Especially on a weekday, when the crowds are smaller.
When we were younger, Mrs H and I enjoyed Black's Beach, near San Diego. The beaches at the western end of Jamaica, in the Negril area, are wonderful.
Lately, we've enjoyed sitting on the beach at Naples in SW Florida and watching the sun set.
We walked the beach at Daytona, but meh, too many cars and Jeeps and such. And Canadians. They are all over Daytona and the Panhandle. You can tell by the white skin and empty Molson bottles.
"Why I hate the beach."
Short answer: He lives in the northeast.
What does one require to go to the beach? Beach towel. Sunscreen. Small bag with snack or money and some small beach toys if you have kids. My daughter loves playing in the water so we don't need much more.
Why do I love going to the beach?
Relaxing. People are mostly in good moods and friendly. Jumping into waves is good fun, add a board or something to ride, even more fun. Cooler (it's usually about 20 degrees cooler at the beach than in my valley house) so the sun feels warm not burning. Beautiful.
Give me a beach north of LA county or on the Channel Islands and it's that much better, as it's much less crowded (on the latter, maybe no one else at all).
Also, I live in SoCal where the beaches are as they should be.
Oregon's beaches are fantastic!
Hundreds of miles of beach and virtually no people! Spectacular scenery.
Of course, it's always about 55 degrees and overcast. But, what the hell!
I'm a person of pallor and I burn easily.
I watched that tatted-up, bow tie wearing douche explain where the word Y*nkee comes from. So Nick-ah-rah-gue-ahns don't like Y*nkees, either, eh? THEN GO THE BLANK BACK HOME - THE FEELING IS MUTUAL!
Then I watched as the Florida Mexicans beat the New York Mexicans in our former national pastime, and I am reminded why that game is even less interesting that it was previously.
The sun shone brightly, like I give a crap. The O’Rourkes possess the Hibernian complexion best suited to sitting in dimly lit pubs – a result of millennia of Darwinian selection among Hibernians sitting in dimly lit pubs. We were coated inch-thick in sunscreen, SPF 100,000.
hahaha. I adore JP.
North and South Carolina beaches are the best - conveniently located right next to the land, with warm water, waves just right for riding on a boogie board, and if one chooses wisely, not too crowded.
"possess the Hibernian complexion"
Irish tan well. Just like any pale person it takes an easing in process.
I come from Scandinavian, Scot-Irish, English heritage. My natural skin is just about translucent. Nurses love to take blood because my veins are so easy to see.
I get a nice tan. People who hate the beach hate the beach for reasons that are due to their hating the beach.
Oregon beaches are great. I was first going to say he hates the beach because he's at a certain latitude. But Oregon is pretty north and it's great there. They don't call it the beach though. They go to the coast. Probably because the water is so cold.
I saw a woman body surfing at Frenchman's beach on Vancouver Island, BC. She didn't die.
I have tried to get in the water from there south to Huntington Beach - the water is just too cold.
At Cabo San Lucas the water is warm enough to tolerate, but the waves will kill you. But the water is warm, so you will die comfy.
I read this yesterday and did not like it one bit. Paddy O nails it. Wrong beach.
The whole thing reeked of click bait because there are too many great beaches to visit all over the place. Has this man never traveled? Of course he has.
I'll only mention Hawaii, and Waikiki isn't the only beach on Oahu, nor Waimea the only coral reef, nor obviously Mazatlan, Puerto Vallarta, Acapulco the only places in Mexico.
Let me tell you about two beaches in Cancun.
The place is on the Gulf side. Staked out in advance by the government specifically as a site most suitable to build resorts due mostly to its incredible white beaches. One hears howling monkeys on the drive out there. Deep sea fishing available, the whole bit. Hot as h-e-double spit sticks, but the fine white sand is actually cool to the touch. Extremely fine white sand, finer than salt. When your body is wet, and your body is always wet, the sand coats every single hair on your body with 1,000 granules of sand formed from shelled creatures so that standing up you resemble a Yeti. And it shakes off, as a dog shakes off water. That is where the resorts are.
But before that, along the long stretched out peninsula that ends with the cluster of resorts, are houses arranged as gated communities and rented to visitors. Huge beautiful ocean front homes.
All beaches in Mexico are public.
But private homes are built such that little chunks are sectioned off and inaccessible otherwise. Such is the case with these walled mini communities. The house we rented, beautiful all by itself and worth lounging around all day, had it's own private mini beach, not of the white sand mentioned. It had ordinary sand. Completely private beach. The artificial jetty on which the house was built formed a coral reef that had us fascinated snorkeling mesmerized for weeks observing the fish life it attracted .
I was laying out there reading a book and dreaming, staring at the rock wall that sectioned the beach separating it from the house, made of the local lava type rock seen and used everywhere. black and gray and white,
Black and gray and white, black and gray and white black and gray and white black and gray and white black and gray and white black and gray and white black and gray and white black and gray and white
I was fascinated.
Rapt by the pattern.
I thought, Man, that pattern could be anything, any textile used for anything, sheets, table cloths, porch coverings, clothing, it is an amazing pattern right there. I studied the pattern intensely, when suddenly it moved!
It moved in the shape of very large lizard.
An iguana jerked and revealed its outlined shape within the pattern. It had been there all along disguised perfectly by the pattern in the rock, and I mean perfectly
I can never forget that moment of wonder. It is not possible to forget.
That is what the beach does.
And that is just one beach.
P. J. O'Rouke is just being doo-doo head. An old stinky fart. A click baiting curmudgeon. He knows full well the world is filled with wonderful fascinating beaches. And populated with beautiful young gorgeous bodies besides.
I have many other beach-related stories to relate starting with childhood, right here in the United States, but there is only so much space, only so much time to laud them. Places you might not imagine like Biloxi Mississippi and Ft. Ord Florida, Provincetown Massachusetts, Cape Charles Virginia, far too many to mention.
He pissed me off by draining the fun out of one of life's best pleasures, just to get undeserved web traffic.
I'm with PJ. The beach is sand in the crotch and sunburn on the shoulders. Plus, you have to take a shower after the ocean to get rid of that salty stickiness. A pool beats a beach going away. Which is what W is lying next to.
I spent over a decade doing the summer beach house scene in Dewey, Deleware with good friends. What a rut! Get down early enough Friday to grab BBQ and catch up with best friends over dinner. Then hit the bar scene to catch up with more people and look for new friends. Hit the beach by 10 Saturday and spend the day sunbathing, gossiping, swimming, playing beach volleyball, taking long walks. At 5 we'd meet up with everybody at the beach bar with rock and roll bands in the afternoons, or sometimes the mellower beachside bar with a guitarist. Dinner and drinks followed by two or three parties - at least one of which was usually a costume party. Repeat the beach on Sunday, then drive home, being sure to pick up your brain at the Bay Bridge where you'd dropped it off Friday night.
I've had fun at the beach, but for me it was more the people and less the beach.
Follow not the path of the grumpy old guy. Write of the joys of beaches we have been to. The black sand beach at the northern tip of Hawaii. The way the waves roll in, seemingly forever, at Waikiki. The beauty of St. Augustine. The iridescent water off Marco Island. The cold water and rocky beaches in Maine. The Florida keys. The pink sand beaches of Bermuda. Delaware, a place from which no good person has ever come, home of Bethany and Rehoboth beach. Virginia Beach, Nags Head, Kitty Hawk, Cherry Grove - heaven, each and every one of them. Hilton Head - a place near and dear to my heart - perhaps I will go there some day. St. Thomas, St. Johns, ah, to be in Charlotte Amalie during Carnival, hearing steel bands so loud that your ears ring - that's not exactly the beach, but it's close.
San Gregorio beach, Pescadero beach, Bodega Bay State Park - I could go on and on - California has some great beaches.
Be not PJ, be the guy who eschews pjs. Which reminds me of a little beach near Half Moon Bay - but that was long ago and far away. Best not to dwell on those times...
Huh. No comment about the beaches at P-Town, whatever that is.
We used to vacation on the Cape 50 years ago, we visited Provincetown, but I hear it is more like Fire Island than Jones Beach, just sayin'...
I actually have great memories of Jones Beach on Long Guyland but that was when I was a little kid. You would leave the hot sweaty sticky gritty city and it was like miraculous the way the air would become pure as you approached LI's south coast. There were also miles and miles of flower beds that had been planted from the entrance to Jones Beach State Park all the way to the beach itself. That was back in the days when there was a connection between the state and its subjects and the great Robert Moses had not only built the state park at Jones Beach but had also pushed through great highways that got you out there easily. Yes, kiddies, there were actually public servants back then who did not hate the demos and demonically work to destroy it.
Sand + water = beach.
Sand + water + bikinis = great beach.
My favorite beach, of all beaches, is the sand beach running north from Sleeping Bearn Dunes (now a National Lakeshore with feds everywhere) to near Leland, on Lake Michigan. I learned to swim there, in 3 to 5 foot waves a fair bit off shore. An old guy, a friend, who was a swimming instructor and long distance swimmer (10 miles was a mere "jog" for him) who swim alongside me or accompany me in a canoe to make sure I didn't got tits up in the shipping channels off shore. By late summer the sand has shifted and it is 25 feet deep 30 feet from the water's edge.
In June the water was barely over 55 degrees near shore, but by August it got up to 70+ on a sunny day...manageable. We had a beautiful summer home, that I helped design, on the bay just outside Glen Arbor, among the v-e-r-y few parcels not taken by the park. On a very calm day you could water ski for almost 8 miles in a straight line and not cross another wake. Heaven it was on those days. It became too expensive tax wise, in-holders tend to be taxed to compensate for lost taxes to federal park land, and we sold it in the late 90's. I've never gone back, just too painful as the few remaining bits of land became developed in to something I could not imagine. That and the difficulties the feds put upon my brother's in-laws was just too much (they had to sue to get paid for land the feds took...over nearly 8 years+) and I developed a hatred of land I once loved.
My only other favorite beach was Bethany Beach (at the "Addy Sea" B&B) in Delaware, but I've not been back there either....but I'm thinking about it. It won't be Lake Michigan and the Manitou Islands, but it will still be nostalgic...which counts for something I guess.
Haz, P-Town has some superb sand dune beaches, the water is cold as hell though.
I've been to every ocean state in the US except Alabama, Hawaii and Oregon. There are hundreds of GREAT beaches. My favorites are Race Point Beach and Coast Guard Beach on Cape Cod. South Beach on Martha's Vineyard. I have only driven through the Carolina Beaches. Their near the top of our list for a September trip. Marco Island and Naples in Florida. Palm Beach and some stretches of Fort Lauderdale are good, away from the high rises. All the San Diego beaches are great. Malibu and Santa Barbara are tough to beat. But, my favorite beach ever is the ocean side of Cozumel. NOBODY goes there but a few locals. You can swim nude w/o anyone. My kids loved it. The waves and rip currents are tricky and you are on your own. There are little bars and taco stands, but that's it. No houses or businesses. The north side of Cozumel is where everything is located, facing Cancun. But, rent an old VW w/ the roof cut off an walk on the wild side, if you know how to swim well and know how to read waves and currents.
We used to stay in a place that was one block away from the water in Bethany Beach. The Ash Wednesday storm in '62 wiped out the front row of buildings and the one we used to rent became beachfront property. Winning!
We never went back after the storm.
I do recall that the entire town was dry, in the sense that no alcohol was sold there - for booze my folks had to go to Rehoboth or OC, MD. They were more than willing to make that effort.
Come to think of it - the town we grew up in was dry, too. WTF? Seems like everyone I knew was a lush.
I guess people would drink elsewhere and drive home. What could possibly go wrong with that scheme?
Sixty, Here's a real anomaly. Ocean City, NJ is a large beach spot between AC and Wildwood. Before we had kids we would rent a beach house there w/ some college buddies. It's a dry town, which is incredible in NJ.
Beaches are not created equal. There are beautiful beaches north of Boston but there are many honky ones too.
Race Point Beach is divine and rarely a fatty anywhere, except if some diesels blop in.
Ogunguit in Maine is the nearest beach to frenchies. The beach is amazing. One hour from Boston. Tons of hot French Canadians.
tits.
PJO isn't the great writer that he used to be. This is a formula piece.
I remember the days of glory, say an account of walking around the Central Park jogging path smoking a cigar and his various encounters with the outrage-American community.
It was an area-clearing cigar, too.
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