The sea, the beautiful sea!

The Beach

“Don’t grow up too quickly, lest you forget how much you love the beach.”

                                  Michelle Held

“The cure for anything is salt water—sweat, tears, or the sea.”

                                  Isak Dinesen

 “Why do we love the sea?  It is because it has some potent power to make us think things we like to think.”

                                  Robert Henri

         Nearly ten years have passed since I last visited the Gulf coast; before Katrina turned the barrier islands over, before the oil spill.  Today it is a different place all together.  We stayed in a house out toward Fort Morgan, near Gulf Shores, AL.  What used to be miles of empty white sand beach is now row upon row of Easter egg colored houses perched on stilts, some of them large enough to hold a small town.  When you sit on the now-tan beach and look out to sea, you are confronted with oil and natural gas rigs every nautical mile for as far as the eye can.  They look like those huge killing machines from the Star Wars movies—ATAT’s.  Large ships can be seen going from rig to rig delivering supplies and fresh humans to operate the pumps.  At night, the horizon appears to be a city on the waves.  It is not a pretty sight either on land or out to sea.

         Since the oil spill, 172 bottle-nose dolphins, 90 adults and 82 babies, have washed up on the Gulf beaches.  Scientists have not determined the cause of the unusual number of deaths, but common sense would seem to indicate the alteration in their habitat played a role.  We did watch a pod of perhaps ten dolphins swimming by each day; at least some are managing to survive.  Every morning a caravan of brand new all terrain vehicles, six or seven of them, drove slowly down the beach carrying four people each, lots of rakes and covered garbage cans.  They were supposed to be looking for oil or tar-balls on the beach, but it seemed they were always looking out to sea or engaged in animated conversation.  A little while later we’d see them rolling slowly back to base. 

         I don’t know what all of this means.  I do know that I felt sad seeing it; sad at all the ‘progress’ and its impact on the coast.  Some of the people staying at the house made the argument that we need the oil and gas and that it’s better to pump our own than to be at the mercy of OPEC, and I guess they are right.  I kept wondering whether I would be less offended if I looked out to sea and saw huge windmills instead of oil rigs.  I don’t know.

The weather was beautiful and the company good.  I walked on the beach every morning and evening just as I always have.  I am refreshed and ready to go, but it will probably be a while before I go back to the Gulf.  I don’t want to see where progress will take it next.

                          Keeping the faith,

                          Jane