Waves!

[ellarien]

It turned out there wasn't a reception after all, so after registering we went out for dinner. When we got back to the hotel I spent several minutes on the balcony on the ocean side, watching the sea. The tide was high, leaving only a narrow strip of beach, and the waves came in and in, tall as a row of galloping horses in the distance, then toppling and spreading out to a thin shifting curtain of lace over the sand. Little groups of sandpipers ran in the shallow parts until the waves caught them, and then rode the receding water out. The air was heavy with the salty, fishy smell of the sea.

It's been so long. Not quite as long as I thought; I did spend a week in Nice, France in 1996, and that involved at least one early morning stroll on a pebbly beach, but I don't think the Mediterranean has breakers like that. When I was a teenager we used to spend a day in Scarborough each summer, my father and my sister and I, and I loved to lean on the promenade railing and watch the waves come in.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

It was a brilliant day, wasn't it? I go down to the ocean every other weekend (it's a fifteen minute drive from my house) and take a lot of photos until I finally just sit and relax and watch. I love the sandpipers.

[ellarien]

As far as could tell, spending all afternoon in planes and airports, it was a lovely day. We got a glimpse of ocean as we came in to land at LAX. By the time we got to Monterey it was sunset. I was out on the beach first thing this morning, and it looks as though it's going to be nice again.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

What are you doing in Monterey? I was about halfway between Marina and Castroville Saturday to get a tour of the water treatment plant for most of Monterey County, and a very fine water treatment plant it is.

It's been excessively gorgeous all around the bay here lately, but all I want to do is curl up in a little ball and not think about things -- I have things to not think about.

When the wind is right, I get to hear the breakers at Cowell's Beach all night long, and the sea lions too.

[ellarien]

I'm at a meeting at the Beach Resort. It's going to be fairly hard work, I think, but we get Wednesday afternoon off.