Windy days and Rip tides

What a blustery summers day.

The ocean is wild with white waves and there is an awesome rip tide but the sun is bright and warm. A perfect day for laying in the hot sand and for digging holes to play in. It's a tough task to convince our 2 year old not to stomp on the sand castles or to fill in the holes but everyone is content nonetheless. The wind surfers must really be enjoying the north wind though I imagine they'll need a ride back down south today.
Swimming in the ocean on a day like today is a dangerous sport but oh so much fun. Our oldest daughter is a good swimmer and well aware of the risks of rip tides (fast moving streams of water that travel off shore) but our 4 year old took quite a few wipe outs as she is a daredevil in the ocean. We're really working with her on some tips for getting out of a rip tide. I'll post them with the prayer that none of you will ever need them:
1. Never try to fight a rip current by swimming straight into shore.
2. Swim parallel to the shore until you get out of the rip current. (They are usually less than 100 feet wide)
3. If you cannot swim out of it, stay calm and float on your back until you drift out of the current.
4. Once you are out of the current, swim towards shore. A full description of rip tides and how to handle them can be found at http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov/overview.shtml.

Enjoy the ocean but be safe and swim near a lifeguard!

Life at the Beach

It's a beautiful summers Monday and our 4 children have spent the entire 4th of July weekend in the surf and sand, leaving the waves to lap away the marks of their days. What an amazing way to spend the summer. Our 12 year old beauty has become a little surfer girl beyond my wildest dreams and her younger brother learned this weekend to boogie board on his back!
What a carefree existence and yet, they, along with their 2 little sisters (ages 2 and 4) are amazingly aware of the environment and its wildlife by living in Ocean City.
As a child we used to drive 45 minutes from home, leaving by 8:30 am, to spend long days at the beach. Lathered in Coppertone and sandy with salt and sweat by time we piled back in the Buick for the drive home before Dad got done work, I never even considered it an option to be able to live in the same town that I used to spend vacation days, as Shoobies!
I sure hope our children appreciate this idyllic existence!