Sunrise/Sunset

Today was the first full day of summer. My grand plan was to get up early (3:50 am), get dressed, drive to the beach, walk on the beach as the sun rose and then go home to take a nap. Then, later in the afternoon, my brother and I would go boating and, as I drove home from his house, I would watch the sunset.

Well, life doesn’t always unfold the way plans are made. When I arrived at the beach this morning, I discovered there wasn’t any beach. Was it taken away by aliens? Was it dug up and removed by thieves? Did it get washed out to sea? The latter is almost true.  The tide was high so the beach was covered by the ocean.

The beach?

These are the rocks right under the sea wall where I was standing.  See that far wave at the very top of the picture? That is generally where the edge of the ocean is  when it is at lower tide.

Stairway to the beach

Where the end of the fence is in the picture above is where the stairway is located that goes down to the beach. As you can see, the water is right up to the edge.

Wells Beach

See the sea? No beach! I was just walking on Sunday where all that water was this morning.

Sunrise

But the sunrise was absolutely beautiful!  Keep in mind, this is 4:59 am. but well worth waking up and driving to the beach to see.

Most of the rest of the day was quite pleasant. Not too hot, sunny but with a thin cloud cover so it wasn’t too bright outside.

Unfortunately, as the day progressed, as we checked the weather, my brother and I could see on the radar rain heading our way. Finally at 4:00 pm, my brother canceled the boat ride. Wise decision. By the time we would have been out in the middle of the lake, the temperature had dropped and it was raining. I don’t have any pictures to show you of this but here is a picture from last summer on the lake:

Summer 2010

Just imagine the lake but with dark clouds, fog and rain. That is what it looked like this evening. Not the best boating weather.

Yes, my day did not unfold the way I had planned. No where near the way I had planned. But some of that was due to the weather, which I have no control over. And some of that was due to poor planning on my part. What did I learn from that poor planning? If one wants to walk on the beach at sunrise, one might want to check the tide charts to see if that walk will be feasible. Lesson learned.