Playing on the beach....

A Mother and her babies.  St. Pete Beach, Florida

.........Two of the babies playing and taking a bath

Going solo....

To myself I am only a child playing 

on the beach, while vast oceans 

of truth lie undiscovered before me. 

~ Isaac Newton

Living in Bliss....

"On the beach, 
you can live in bliss."

- Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys




Here's to a blissful Monday......

A bit tired but still standing....

"You can't cross a sea

by merely staring

into the water."

- Rabindranath Tagore

Here's to taking action and moving forward....

no matter how insurmountable things may seem. 

Have a glorious Monday!!!

A Gift From a New Friend is a Gift from the Sea.....

"I began these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my own individual balance of life, work and human relationships.  And since I think best with a pencil in my hand, I started naturally to write.  I had the feeling, when the thoughts first clarified on paper, that my experience was very different from other people's,  (Are we all under this illusion?) My situation had, in certain ways, more freedom than that of most people, and in certain other ways, much less."

                                    Anne Morrow Lindbergh, foreward from "Gift from the Sea"

So AML would be very pleased.  A book she began as a personal journal...has transcended time and 55 years later connects women together from all over the world.  Her opening words in a "Gift from the Sea" really resonated with me as they remind me of the reason I started my blog.  Like Anne, who started her book as a personal journal, I started my blog as my personal creative outlet.

What I didn't expect was that it would connect me with others who share the same life passions that I do.  What a wonderful thing this has been for me.....to meet such terrific people.

Recently, I learned about Karen from The Essential Beachcomber... actually through another blog - Shellbelle's Tiki Hut where Rhonda wrote a great post titled "The Other Shellebelle" who as it turns out was Karen.  I loved the post, joined Karen's blog and from there... we hit it off.  In learning more about Karen from her blog, I realized that we have much in common, especially our love of beach combing and shelling.  Karen did two posts in particular that I just loved and commented on.  The first one - was about her collecting shark's teeth that wash up on shore...and the second one was a fabulous post on "The Gift from the Sea".

I had never read this book - although being a seashell fanatic and a fan of Sanibel & Captiva Island....I knew it was a classic. Next thing I know - Karen offers to send me a copy as she had an extra one.  Of course, I accepted and when it arrived...I was so touched to receive an added surprise.....

Karen included a lovely label of a little girl on the beach pouring beautiful seashells out of her sand pail...which says It is the sweet, simple things of live which are the real ones after all.  

And my added surprise.....shark's teeth that had washed up on shore....

How nice was this?  She remembered I was intrigued by her shark teeth post - and sent me some along with the book.  What made it even more special - was that she is currently working on filling a jar - which takes some time - and she gave me some of these teeth instead of adding them to her jar.  I am still thinking about how I'm going to display these teeth in my home decor.  They are very cool, it's hard to imagine they were teeth...since they are very smooth and closely resemble tiger eyes.

So Karen's favorite chapter is Channelled Whelk.  Here is an excerpt that I selected:

"I mean to lead a simple life, to choose a simple shell I can carry easily - like a hermit crab.  But I do not.  I find that my frame of life does not foster simplicity.  My husband and five children must make their way in the world.  The life I have chosen as wife and mother entrains a whole caravan of complications. It involves a house in the suburbs and either household drudgery or household help which wavers between scarcity and non-existence for most of us.  It involves food and shelter; meals, planning, marketing, bills and making the ends meet in a thousand ways.  It involves not only the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker but countless other experts to keep my modern house with its modern "simplifications" (electricity, plumbing, refrigerator, gas-stove, oil-burner, dish-washer, radios, car and numerous other labor-saving devices) functioning properly.  It involves health; doctors, dentists, appointments, medicine, cod-liver oil, vitamins, trips to the drugstore.  It involves education, spiritual, intellectual, physical; schools, school conferences, car-pools, extra trips for basketball, or orchestra practice, tutoring, camps, camp equipment and transportation."

"Simplification of outward life is not enough.  It is merely the outside. But I am starting with the outside.  I am looking at the outside of a shell, the outside of my life - the shell. The complete answer is not to be found on the outside, in an outward mode of living.  This is only a technique, a road to grace. The final answer, I know, is always inside. But the outside can give a clue, can help one to find the inside answer.  One is free, like the hermit crab, to change one's shell".

It's amazing to think these words 

were written in 1955.

Thanks Anne - for connecting so many of us who otherwise would not have met - that is your true Gift from the Sea.

The Wave - In pursuit of Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean

Close to my house there is a wonderful book store that I love to spend time in...just browsing.  Being an avid reader - this is a great place to visit, because it is one of those old fashion style neighborhood bookstores that has a little cafe, has story reading for children and carries all the interesting new bestsellers - but also hard to find, one of a kind books that are collectibles.

So today I picked up a new book, that I had recently read the reviews on in The New York Times Sunday Book Review - called The Wave, by Susan Casey, the Editor in Chief of O Magazine.

In researching for the book, she followed a group of world-class surfers who were determined to ride a 100-wave.  She spent five years in Maui writing it and as soon as I opened it  and checked out the photos - I knew I wanted to read this book.  

From learning about "The Ring of Fire"......

The Pacific Basin's volcano dotted perimeter

 that is responsible for 80% of all tsunamis

To learning about the world's largest tsunami that occurred 

on July 9, 1958 in Lituya Bay, Alaska.  

Where a record breaking wave was recorded at 1,740 feet tall.  

Millions of trees were completely stripped of their bark.....

....To finding out that there is such a thing as rogue waves and that there are people addicted to the thrill of riding one.  Since its impossible to paddle fast enough to ride a 70 foot wave, surfers use a technique called tow surfing.  This is where one person, on a jet ski tows a surfer holding onto water ski ropes, at 30 miles per hour; once they get into position, the surfer let's go and rides a wave otherwise too big and too fast to catch by conventional methods. 

"Waves are not measured

 in feet and inches, 

but in increments of fear."

                                                         Big Wave Surfer Buzzy Trent 

                                                    An excerpt from The Wave

A Sea & Summer to remember....

Linking up to:  Completely Coastal

Taken from the beach of the Four Seasons Punta Mita Mexico

"I really don't know why it is that all of us are so committed to the sea, except I think it's because in addition to the fact that the sea changes, and the light changes, and ships change, it's because we all came from the sea.

And it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears.

We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea - whether it is to sail or to watch it - we are going back from whence we came."


John F. Kennedy
9/14/62 Remarks in Newport, RI at a dinner for America's Cup Crews.

The beaches in Punta Mita, Mexico are on the top of my favorites list. I am linking this up to Cindy's I Owe it all to Him's weekend party on Favorite places.  

This beach is heaven on earth..with lot's of shells, coral and driftwood. 

Pool at the Four Seasons Punta Mita

One last view of this amazing beach

Explore. Dream. Discover.

The Blue Boat from Melanie M Originals Etsy Shop

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain




Still trying to figure out where in my house this fabulous 8 X 10 photo will go.  It needs its own special place!

Today's view from the Gulf.....

Sanibel Island

"The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach........waiting for a gift from the sea.”

Anne Morrow Lindbergh