Beaching it

So far this summer we have hit the beach three times.  The first time we went with Kelly, the second with Susan, and this last time I took Darcy and her friend, Savanna.  With Kelly the gulf was typical, flat and calm, but with Susan we had little waves.  We spent quite some time out in the gulf catching waves and floating up and down on rafts as the waves took us.  The bottom wasn't deep and the water was warm and fairly clear, as clear as we get here on our side.

Chill-axing in the gentle waves as the sun sets

 Where is Madison?

There she is!

This week when we got to the beach the tide was as high as I have ever seen it, except when hurricanes blow through.  We had to put our chair parallel to the walkway so that our stuff would not get wet.  The buoy, that last week we had rowed out to on our floats, looked like it was miles away.  The waves were the type of waves you would see on the opposite coast and the bottom was very deep and the water filthy from all the churning.  We spent two hours just riding the waves into the shore.  The waves just kept coming and coming so that as you rode one wave and got to the shallow area, another wave would come in behind that one and push you even farther up the beach.

Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of how high the waves were because I was too busy riding them.  I did get out after two hours and sit in the surf taking the above photos, but by then the waves had already started dying down.  We went into a surf shop later that evening and the guy told us it had been this way for a couple of days now due to some westerly winds and storms churning around out in the gulf.  Whatever it was, we had a blast!