Yep. For those of us who spend most of the time in a city, just seeing the sea is pretty cool and walking or jogging alongside the sea (where there are paths to do so), can be really elating. And of course other activities like surfing or whatever.
But lying on the beach…last time someone insisted we do this I got bored almost instantly, and then spent the next hour trying to read text on my smartphone screen in bright sunshine.
I love the beach. But I grew up on or near beaches. If you don’t like beaches in the day, they are quite different at night. Sitting with your girlfriend, on the beach at night, watching the “submarine races” is fun. Nice way to spend a summer night at the beach.
We did indeed “go to the Beach” (capital B) pretty much every summer, for a couple of weeks at a time, when I was a kid. It was a journey of many hundred miles, and it meant sharing a large vacation house with various other family members, and I LOVED it. Looked forward to it every year. It wasn’t just “the Beach,” of course, it was card games after dinner, and fish restaurants, and just hanging out with relatives I didn’t see very often; but we went to “the Mountains” one year instead, and it wasn’t nearly as good.
Swimming, Jumping in the waves. Floating on little rafts. Bodysurfing. Digging tunels. Building sand castles. Looking for shells. Looking for sand dollars in particular. Walking to the end of the beach. Writing words in the sand. Watching the tide come in and out. Bliss.
Now? No. No, thanks. I haven’t been to a real Beach in several years and I don’t miss it, and I’d much rather go to “the Mountains” now than to “the Beach.” With or without relatives. The last time I went to a place by the ocean, there wasn;t much of a beach at all and I sure didn;t miss it. I still like bodysurfing. I still like swimming in the ocean (or large lake) when the waves aren’t heavy. I still enjoy the sensation of running into the water. And now I like paddling in the waters as well. But the beach itself–boy, these days I sure can do without the sand, the sun, and the rest of it…
Funny how things change.
I live on a mostly rocky beach in Cayman. No way I would lay a towel out on one of the few sandy spots. I know that our cats, as well as a few feral ones around here, treat the sand as their litter box.
I dislike the beach at the time of year and time of day when other people love it, because it’s bound to be too hot, too sunny, and too crowded. I don’t swim. I don’t like crowds and parking hassles. In the sun I go straight from ghostly white to beet red and back again without ever hitting tan. However, the beach can be pleasant at other times: after dark or early in the morning or in the spring and fall.
When my Wife and I do a ‘resort’ type of vacation, It’s usually on the beach. I like having it there, but we always hang out by the pool. Might snorkel in the ocean for a bit, but for the most part it’s reading and drinks by the pool.
The wife grew up a stones throw from “The Beach” on Cape Cod and loves it. She and her friends can go there for hours and hours at a time.
Not so for me.
I love the beach, but I don’t see the point of just sitting on it. Walking can be nice, but mostly it’s all about the swimming.
Well, I dunnno, it was a perfect day when I was there, not too crowded, warm water and good waves to body surf. Plus I had some excellent kangaroo sliders at a cafe across from the Pavilion.
I did visit quite a few other beaches in Australia – including Wineglass Bay in Tasmania – and they were all pretty great.
Love the crowded, umbrella’d, hotdog stand, suntan oil Atlantic and love the the empty, rocky, riptide, grey whale migration Pacific. If I could waste the rest of my life sitting in a beach chair, stating out at one or the other, I would.
I love the ocean but hate the beach. Swimming in the ocean is my favorite sport and I can stay out for hours but that only applies to warm water. Ironically, I live not that far from Cape Cod and work even closer to it. People pay huge money to go there during the summer yet I almost never do because I don’t see the point. The water is cold even in July and sitting in traffic for hours just to sit in sand with rejects from The Jersey Shore isn’t my idea of a good time. That is all for the best because it gets the undesirables funneled in the opposite direction that I prefer. Boston area beaches like Revere beach are spectacular in their trashiness but it hasn’t quite come full circle so they remain at just plain terrible.
Lake beaches are much better in New England because the water gets warmer and it much quieter.
OTOH, I love swimming with the fish in the Caribbean and Hawaii. I had a blast on Sandy Beach on Oahu a few years ago (the spinal injury capital of the U.S. and you are almost guaranteed to get hurt by the huge and powerful waves but boy, it is fun). It is a natural amusement park as long as you can swim very well (kids and less fit people aren’t allowed).
Me too. And I love just floating in the water.
yeah, love the smells, sounds and visuals…not so much the lying in the sun baking part, although when I was younger, rolling in hot sand after getting cold in the water…always felt good. My parents always warned me, I would grow fish gills if I didnt get out of the ocean…(great place to let children be themselves IMO)
I grew up a surfer, first on the east coast of the US, and then the west coast… so I’ve had all sorts of beach experiences, good and bad, but what comes to mind now, a positive time, is when the sun is setting, and the full moon is rising, purple and pink sky lights up the waves… the surf is running high, and the offshore winds are carrying that desert smell, that California gets… we would stay out surfing until dark and the stars came out and phosphorescence would light up the water…just…hard to describe gorgeous:D:D
If you mean the surf and sand, then no. If you mean the main drag and attractions of Virginia Beach or say Morey’s Piers, then the answer is yes. But pick up either one and move it 300 miles inland and I would still probably go once every couple years or so.
I guess you could say I like the idea of the beach better than the beach itself. The reality often sucks – sand in all your stuff, wet clothes mildewing, sunburn.
[quote=“iiandyiiii, post:60, topic:779518”]
Yes. I’m currently at the beach, by the way, in sunny Florida, with my lovely wife. We did some fun adult stuff in the morning . . ./QUOTE]
We did fun adult stuff here today, and we’re getting two feet of snow.
It can be fun; you just need to do the right planning.
I don’t like sunburn.
I don’t like crowds.
I do like relaxing and either reading or relaxing in the sun.
I like the fresh seafood that can be had at nice restaurants later.
Planning means sun block is on before you even get into the car (and re-applied in the parking lot once there).
It means getting up early, getting there early, and setting up early so you will be far away from other people.
(I’ve been told that putting up small signs that say “I’m Contagious!!!” may be a health code violation, so I’ll have to think up something new for 2017.)
It means a cooler with ice and bottles of water. Possibly lunch in a water-proof container.
It means towels, a chair, an umbrella, and possibly some kind of mallet to get the bottom section of the umbrella deep enough into the sand.
It means a hat & sunglasses.
It means a phone (so you can make the restaurant reservations and so you can set a timer-alarm) that can be protected from sand.
It means being somewhat-near a changing room with a wash-off station for afterward.
It means having a dinner change-of-clothes in a bag in the car for the restaurant and/or club later.
(Shoes, socks, fresh u/w, nice shirt, nice pants, belt, and your kit-bag {so you can wash up, quick shave, brush teeth, brush hair, etc. before you leave the changing room} )
Most Importantly:
It means accepting all of these tasks as part of enjoying the day And Not Bitching About The Tasks That Make The Day Possible. 
Carrying these things back and forth from the car to the beach is just part of the experience.
And there’s also all those little rocks you step on. That’s one reason we liked Hua Hin in Thailand, pretty smooth sand even under water. I have some sort of reef shoes now.
I don’t care about the beach at all. I have a pool at home, in private, no sand, no bity pinchy stingy animals, and the fridge is about twenty steps from the poolside. Bathroom’s about five more steps.
Heaven.
no. I don’t swim, I don’t like hot weather, and I don’t want to be outside around other people in nothing but shorts.