Fun, Fun, Fun In The Southern California Sun
This may seem unusual to anyone not from here but when you live at the beach in Los Angeles, you often don’t go on the beach.
Instead, you stay pretty much on the porch overlooking the sand at The Strand, the bike and running path that runs parallel to the shore. From this location, you see people running, riding bikes, walking in groups to the bars and especially playing beach volleyball. As well as the sensational daily sunsets.
So when a few friends showed up one summer Saturday afternoon and announced they were going to sit on the sand, I pulled down the seldom-used beach chairs, grabbed a towel and went with them down by the shore.
And let me say that it was fantastic! I felt as if I were on vacation. I was not sitting at the computer typing out a PubClub.com story or positing something on social media or watching another endless afternoon of beach volleyball (which, quite frankly, wears on one after a while).
I dug my feet into the sand, watched girls in bikinis play smashball and people getting pounded by waves in the ocean. There were six of us in our group and we talked like we were teenagers again, chatting about who did what to whom, fun destinations we would like to visit and our upcoming social calendars.
I also got into the water, which is even more rare for me than stepping onto the sand. For starters, the ocean in California is cold for much of the year, so unless you’re a die-hard surfer with a 3-mil wetsuit, there’s only a short window get into it.
Secondly, the Pacific is a pounding ocean. You had better be alert when you go into it because while the waves may not appear to be that big from the shore, they are so powerful they can knock you down if they hit you anywhere around the knees.
There is also a huge undercurrent so when the waves recede, you have to dig your feet into the sand to keep from getting swept out to sea and carried off to Catalina.
I love being in the water and at a pleasant 70-something degrees the temperature is perfect now in July, but I tire quickly of always having to duck dive below incoming waves. To really enjoy the water, I prefer to relax, and you can’t relax when you’re in the ocean in California.
Back on shore, I rejoined the conversation, dug my feet in the sand again and let the sun dry me off from my watery adventure. The ocean, however, started coming after us. The tide was coming in and it kept getting closer and closer to our position until one wave finally rolled right over us, leaving us scrambling to grab flip flops and other loose items.
At this point, we decided to retreat back to the beach house and the scene on The Strand. After all it, was cocktail time anyway
Cheers!
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