Teemings
Mother Mother Ocean
by Chique
It was the book's fault. I can't even remember the title,
but it was definitely the book's fault.
When I was in grade school I read about an English
girl, raised in Barbados, who moves to Puritan New England upon the death
of her father. She tells of growing up in the islands, swimming nearly every
day, and of her voyage to Massachusetts on a sailing ship and being scolded
for going out on deck during a gale.
The first time I saw ocean I was stationed in Pensacola,
FL. It doesn't get cold in Northern Florida, but it's so humid there that
any coolness is exacerbated. It was mid-October, and the last tropical storm
was making its way through the Gulf. My boyfriend of the time was shocked
I had never seen big water. So it was cold and gray and violent and the waves
were washing over the forty-foot tall fishing pier and I fell in love with
it on the spot.
The next time I saw ocean - well, a different one,
at least - was nine months later and all the way across country. I was on
my way to the San Francisco Bay area for more training and stopped off in
L.A. to visit some relatives. They were going to Mission Bay for the 4th
of July and let me tag along for the holiday weekend. I found the Pacific
quite different. The Gulf Shore is sandy and the Gulf itself shallow and
warm; the Pacific is big and cold, the shoreline rocky and dotted with tidal
pools. (I spent at LEAST an hour watching one.) Did I mention it was cold?
After spending so much time next to warm, shallow waters, I wasn't expecting
to spend the night watching fireworks in jeans and a sweatshirt while wrapped
up in blankets.
By the end of the summer, I finally saw the Atlantic
proper. My first weekend in Homestead, I drove down the Keys in a vain attempt
to find a public beach, only to be disappointed until happening upon the
Tiki Hut Bar in Islamorada. I could see the water-brilliant blues and greens
and teals-passing by my car windows as I drove down the causeway; I just
couldn't get to it. The following weekend a few coworkers took a case of
beer and me out to a county park and we drank and talked until the sun came
up. I did that once or twice more while I was there. :)
After Hurricane Andrew blew me out of Florida and into
D.C., I was oceanless until I met a woman with a vacation house on the Delaware
shore. She rented it out most of the year, but once or twice I went out with
her to see to the place, I and would spend hours at night alone on the beach.
Once a winter, when it was especially cold and gray, I'd take my comforters
and hie myself out to Bethany Beach and rent an oceanside room for incredibly
cheap off-season prices, open my windows and listen to the ocean all night.
Then Hawai'i. I really disliked Hawai'i after a while-too
small for me. But there was this beach...
Pull out a map of Oahu. Do you see Wailua? Or Haleiwa?
Turn right and follow the coast north and you'll find the largest waves in
the world, 50 and 60 foot monsters that only fools would surf-and they do,
towed out by JetSkis. Sunset Beach and Pipeline and Waimea Bay. But turn
left?
Turn left and follow the coast almost to the northwest
tip-Kaena Point - and stop when you get to the park gate. Park your car,
grab the wine and the picnic you've packed and follow the path through the
shrubs down to that group of rocks under the packed sand dune. There. Perfect.
Let the dog off her lead and watch the sunset. If you get there early enough,
you can walk to Kaena Point and watch the currents cross each other and the
dolphins play. If you're lucky and have binoculars, watch humpback whales
breach in the distance.
Yeah.
I miss that.
And now? Now I'm in a state with more shoreline than
any other but none of the shoreline is the right kind.
Except a year ago, I went to Spain to visit a friend.
Rota, near Cadiz. The first weekend I was there we took the ferry across
to Tangier, and halfway across we ran into a storm. Nothing too serious,
but flat-bottomed boats rock a lot in calm seas, let alone in weather. So
I stood out on the fantail and let the spray make me wet and sucked in diesel
fumes along with my nicotine. Which isn't nearly as romantic as the deck
of a barkantine during a gale, but it wasn't until I started typing about
the ferry that I remembered the book.
*****
Post script: The book, by the way (I discovered the
title less than an hour ago), is The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
The E-Zine of the Straight Dope Community