Beach Day

The day before Thanksgiving, Pam and I decided we wanted to get away for a beach day with the dogs. Pam researched and found  a beach near Melbourne that allows dogs. The drive to the beach as fairly uneventful though Donkey kept blocking my view out the back window.

The beach had its own parking lot long with a bathroom and the lot was almost full with just a few parking spots left. Rather than carry the umbrella and towels out we decided to walk out to the beach with the dogs thinking we might have to turn around if it was too crowded.

We both wore masks the entire time and discovered that no one else on the beach wore masks. The beach was crowded but we decided to try and find an isolated spot. My comfort level included at least 30 feet of space or 5 times my height removed from others. That amount of space was hard to find. A sign staked out the limits for the dog beach and all said, maybe 100 yards were allowed for dogs. It was also high tide which meant people and dogs were crushed together. More than half the people on the beach also didn’t have dogs which was frustrating because they could spread out to the vast stretched of beach that were deserted on either side of this crowded mess.

The breeze was coming off the ocean so my other thought is that we should find a spot with no one camped out directly in front of us. We found one spot back by the dunes that was properly isolated. As I held the dogs, Pam started setting up the umbrella. As she was doing that a woman with her dog plopped down a few feet directly in front of us. Pam picked up stakes and we moved about 30 feet south to another spot.

We relaxed for a bit and then took the dogs out to the surf on their leashes. Our masks stayed on, we were no going to swim ourselves, we just let the dogs pay in the surf. Sprout was caught off guard by one wave, but swam back to shore like a pro. Donkey, a puppy, had never been to the beach and she had a blast. We played out in the surf twice. One lady lost her flip flop in the surf and we recovered it for her. On the way back to our umbrella that same lady lost her French Bull Dog and we had to catch it. All three dogs on leashed got tangled up. It would have been funny otherwise, but this lady was not wearing her mask. I worked hard to pull back from the chaos as dogs barked and tugged in all directions. When we got back to the umbrella two college girls had plopped down a few feet from us. We decided to call it a day rather than constantly having to pick up and move. The congested strip of beach kept getting more crowded.

We actually did spot one other responsible dog owner who wore a mask as she walked her pup. Several mask less children flew kites.