A woman in her mid-40s wearing a blue one-piece bathing suit was walking along the part of the beach with debris washed up the night before. She tiptoed delicately among the drying seaweed and coconut seeds, the broken shells, and the washed-up man-of-war, these looking like purple, inflated balloons, all mounded up on a hill deposited by the heavy surf. My small dog and I stood on a dry smooth patch of sand and watched her move in her jagged path with the waves roaring, a remnant of that morning’s storm. We stayed in retreat from the debris. I won’t let the puppy get stung by any sea creatures.
Her face had a broad, distracted smile, an odd smile, I thought, for someone walking by themself. Then I realized she was amused by my dog’s deep concentration on a group of shorebirds sifting through the debris.
“He could catch them,” she said shaking her hair when she talked as if she had been for a swim. Although agile, my dog is a tiny eight-pounder from the shelter, with little prey drive. He is reasonably fast but has very short legs. Hunting was bred out of his family many generations ago. He much prefers sitting on a lap. If I did let my dog run, the birds would be gliding in the erratic winds long before he was even close.
“I am trying to keep an eye on my son. He’s heading toward Golden Beach. There are no lifeguards to stop him from swimming and there is a red flag. I think that’s him up there.”
I saw two tall figures with beach towels over their shoulders half a mile North of where we stood.
“My husband may be there too. Hopefully, he will keep an eye on my son,” she said, the doubtful look on her face suggesting he was also likely to jump into the ocean. Today there were rip current warnings, and if you looked carefully, you could spot them. Since she didn’t know, I explained to her how to identify them.
“Look for a line of white curls out into the ocean. Watch for a break in the line having no cresting waves, darker in appearance, as if the waves are moving past an invisible wall. This is an underwater river, moving backward, away from the beach, out into the ocean, carrying everything along toward deeper, treacherous water.”
“I was raised here”, she said. “And you know, teenagers never change. Kids from beach towns return to school in the Fall and find out who drowned or were paralyzed from surfing accidents during the summer.”
She grew up in Florida, but an old tourist from the Midwest was teaching her how to identify a rip current.
“I better run ahead to stop them,” she said, as she paced hurriedly toward Golden Beach.
I agreed, then let my dog stare at the birds he couldn’t catch.
She turned back to us and waved. “Thank you for the science lesson.”
INSTANT NOODLES 