The beach at dawn

Aug 02, 2014 19:16

I was standing on the beach as the tide rolled in, with only a flimsy pair of trunks between me and the elements. The weather forecast had said that it was going to be hot; but at six in the morning, with a chill wind blowing in over the Atlantic, that was a little hard to believe. Eastwards, small swells in the ocean grew in size and power as they rolled up towards the shore and broke on the sand. The water swirled around my feet. I shivered.

Whose idea was it to get onto the beach at dawn, anyway?

I took a hesitant step forward into the surf. The receding water sucked the sand away from beneath my heels, and I felt myself sink an inch into the wet sand. Another moment, and another wave, larger than the first, smashed into my shins and left the bottom hem of my trunks soaking. This was a bad idea, I said to myself again. Why did I do this?

And yet I took another step forward. Ooh, it was cold, bad idea, why am I doing this?

I was knee-deep in the water when another wave came in. I remember looking up, horrified, at this wall of water that was taller than I was, and then I was knocked off my feet and drenched in salt water.

It wasn't actually so bad once I was immersed up to my neck in it. Getting out deeper ... a few more yards from the shore, and the waves were just ebbs and swells that dropped or lifted you as they passed. Without the wind on my skin, the cold didn't seem so cold. I found myself laughing as I bobbed along, bouncing off the unseen sand below with each passing swell, like a spaceman on the moon.

The sun was coming up, and in a few hours it would be blistering hot, and the beach would begin to fill with people. For now, it was just me and the sea and the rising sun.

I'd have to do this again tomorrow. But of course, that's what I'd said yesterday.
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