Your Bad Beach Stories

In My Humble Opinion
21

When I was about 10, my family took a vacation to the Virginia shore and camped one night near a beach–I think on an island. That night was to be the

Night of the Crabs!!!

Little things no bigger than a child’s hand, but hundreds of them, ghostly pale, scuttling everywhere. They got into our tents, ran over our feet. No pinches that I recall, but they were all over the place and impossible to drive away. It was like a relatively harmless horror movie. We wound up sleeping in the car.

To this day, my sister cannot abide the sight of a crab, even in a Red Lobster commercial.

More recently, on a trip a friend and I took to a park in southern Maryland along the Potomac, we saw signs as we approached the beach that there was a “high jellyfish count”; we didn’t really understand what that meant until we got to the water and saw that it was gelatinous with them. No swimmming that day.

22

I don’t think I would particularly care to swim with used feminine hygiene products. Call me picky, I guess.

Great stories. Amazing how many people have been nearly taken out by the tide.

I remember the little jelly fish on the Cape that were quite harmless. We used to love to catch them. I never realized the sting a big one carries. Oh and we used to put pieces of bread between our fingers, stick our hands in the water off the dock and catch minnows.

Do you remember what pond were you in, Dave? I love the ponds on the Cape. There’s a beautiful one in Marston Mills with the sandiest bottom and clear as can be. At least it was 20 or so years ago when I last visited!

23

When I was about 10 or 11 my younger Sister and I had to be rescued in the Gulf of Mexico. We’d set out to find a previously visited sandbar about 40 yards offshore and somehow drifted over it without realizing. So we just kept going and going and eventually realized we were headed for the open seas. My little Sister sort of panicked and I wasn’t strong enough to basically rescue her at that point. We had taken swimming classes together at the Y and I tried to talk sense into her but she was starting to freak out and was essentially drowning the both of us. I could have made it back in to safety but she was more than I could handle. As providence or luck had it that day there was a boat and a group of college aged young men that had just happened to stop and take a swim within about 30 or 40 yards of us who came to our rescue just about the time I started taking on water.

Another ‘bad beach experience’ that comes to mind would definitely be Panama City, Fl, '75 or so. On vacation and had just gone to the local cinema to catch the just released and acclaimed movie “Jaws.” The next couple of days were spent scanning the seashore with a pair of binoculars from the safety of the back porch of our cottage. Really made you think.

24

Two experiences come to mind. I was the punk kid. I was always doing something to get some other kid in trouble. This came back to bite me on the ass once when I did or said something to one of my friends while we played in the ocean off Rehoboth Delaware. It was jellyfish season, he saw one, and picked it up without stinging himself. He then threw it at me. My reflexes have always been less than stellar, so the jellyfish hit me square in the right eye. Luckily, I had instinctively closed my eye, so the sting hit my eyelid and all around that part of my face. Ouch.

The other awful thing happened to my sister. She was a real tom boy as a kid. When she entered puberty, she started acting more girly. She was wearing a string bikini, the kind that tied on the sides of the bottom. Very girly looking. But she still ran and played like a boy. At some point, while jumping around, the knots came undone, and she lost her bottom. No one saw anything, I believe, but she was stuck in the water. For some reason it didn’t occur to any of us to walk out there with a towel and cover her up so she could come out of the water. My step dad had gone for a walk, and he had the keys to the car, so my mom had to walk home to get her a pair of shorts. 30 minutes later, she got back to the beach and was wading into the water when a woman suddenly pulls my sistes bikini bottoms out of the water with a confused look on her face.

Oh, here’s another. Right around the time of the jellyfish in the face incident, my step dad decided I was weak, and a sissy. I was floating on a raft as the waves broke a long way from shore. A nice pleasant experience, with no risk of being dunked or anything. He comes up behind me, and grabs the raft and starts pulling it out. I didn’t know what he had in mind so I didn’t hop off. He pulls me to just where the waves are breaking, and he wants me to “toughen up” and float where the waves are breaking. I’m screaming that I want to go back where it’s safe, at which point a giant wave hits us. He let’s go of the raft and the waves flips me over. I’m rolling and tumbling under the raft being dragged to shore. I can’t get my bearings, and I didn’t have time to grab my breath. I wash up on shore finally, belching sand. My step dad won’t look at me.

The one good thing that came out of that last experience was that I learned how to give someone the evil eye. I stared a hole in that sumbitch for the next 3 hours. Now everyone knows when not to mess with me.

25

I had a bad experience today, actually–it seems that the surfers decided that they liked the break better over in the “no surfing” area, and there were beginning to be quite a few close calls with the people in the “swimming/boogieboard only” area. There is a large flag, quite visible, that deliniates the two areas. It’s REALLY SCARY to have someone on a surfboard bearing down on you, and being hit by a board is not fun at all!
(We’re talking 50 yards on the ‘wrong side’ of the flag here)
Finally, the lifeguards called in a guy on a waverunner to herd them all…surfers for the most part are a cool bunch, but these guys were really jerks.

26

No, sorry, I don’t remember. It was almost 30 years ago, and we spent a lot of vacations on the Cape. It could’ve been the one you’re thinking of, though. I’m pretty sure we stayed in Marston Mills, one year. We never went to the same place twice.

Oh, and if we can tell other people’s worst experiences in the water, I know my (ex)GF’s worst one. Actually, I… ummm… caused it. We went to Key West, a few years ago, and went on one of the reef snorkeling trips. (Yes, I know about equalizing, now, thank you. Doesn’t help with the leakage from my moustache, though.) Anyway, it was a nice sailing catamaran that we went out on. It took us out to a really gorgeous reef that was teeming with life (unlike so many, unfortunately), and anchored maybe 15 or twenty yards from it, so as not to damage it. In we go, and off we swim.

Now, my GF is not a great swimmer. She can manage, in calm water, as this was, but she was puffing pretty good by the time we reached the reef. She also has a touch of that “emptiness underneath me” fear. But, she was really psyched to see the reef fishes, as this was her first visit to a real tropical reef.

She has a few minor “panting” attacks, as many newcomers to snorkeling do, before becoming comfortable with breathing while her face is in the water. But, she settles in and really starts to enjoy herself, once those pass. And, it was a great reef. Fish of every size, shape, and color, swarming all over it, going about their business. This was not one of the trips where they give you food for the fish, and apparently those aren’t common, down there, because the fish basically ignored us. Mostly.

The one exception to that rule, that I noticed, I didn’t actually notice until we’d been on the reef for a good half hour, or more. By this time, we’d drifted a ways apart. She was probably 35 yards from the boat, and I was probably closer to 45 or 50 yards from it. While clearing my mask for about the four billionth time, I spun to locate the boat, then went back down. This time, due to the spin, I was facing away from the reef. Which is how I happened to notice the barracuda.

To me, barracuda are awesome! Hell, they’re legendary! How many other fish have muscle cars named after them? And, there he was; the real deal. Live and in person, so to speak. A wild barracuda! And, probably only 10 or so yards away! (It’s hard to judge distances, like that.) Just hanging there, motionless, as they do. Staring straight at me. And, looking far more majestic than they do in aquaria. Like Death, in finny form. Well, this was way too cool not to share!

So, I popped up, and located the GF, then waited till I could catch her attention, while keeping an eye on my fishy find. I didn’t want to slap the surface to catch her attention, for fear the barracuda would move away from the annoyance. Finally I got her attention, and shouted the news. Bear in mind, she was a good 10 or 15 yards away, the sun was blazing away, and I was wearing a diving mask, so I couldn’t see her face very clearly as she heard the news I shouted to her. But, I heard her shrieked reply; “WHERE!?!”

That’s when I realized she wasn’t going to be excited about my find, in quite the same way that I was. I tried to explain that he was just hanging motionless, not being the least bit threatening, as I pointed in his general direction. But, by then, she was sprinting across the surface of the water, back to the boat. I’d never seen her move that fast, before, and I haven’t since. Even with the flippers still on her feet. She even beat several of the other folks who were streaking back to the boat. (I mentioned that I had shouted the news to her, right? Did you know sound carries really well, across the water?)

It turned out that there were, in fact, barracuda stationed all around the reef, waiting to resume the lunch which our arrival had so rudely interrupted. It’s probably just as well that she didn’t know she practically stepped on one, on her way back to the boat. But, I thought it was very cool!