With Christmas Eve precisely one week away, the children and grandchildren have begun to arrive on the Island for what I expect will be a week or ten days of holiday from work and school. The weather today was ideal beach weather; viz., sunny and 73 degrees with a light southerly breeze. There were young children adventurously wading into the sea at low tide approaching 1:30 pm this afternoon.

After surmounting Plantation Drive and Greenwood Drive then leaving Sea Pines behind, I continued cycling easterly on Pope Avenue towards Coligny Beach Park where I turned northerly again onto N Forest Beach Road and subsequently diverted onto the extremely condensed Dune Lane. As the latter name suggests it is the most proximate roadway to the beach interrupted only by the grand homes amusingly called names such as  “Beach Getaway” directly overlooking the sea.  In spite of the inescapable luxury of the homes I was astonished to discover numerous though unobtrusive public beach accesses each of which afforded a highly desirable prospect of the expansive beach and the North Atlantic Ocean. I succumbed to drift onto one of the picturesque pathways.

It could not have been more quintessential! As I had predicted the tide had already receded considerably. I had not however imagined the vast extent of the beach, the inviting and generous sandy white dunes, the direct exposure to the mid-afternoon sunshine and the dry furnace heat. It required but a moment’s hesitation to induce me to collapse both my bike and my carcass upon the sand, remove my shoes, prolong my legs and feel the radiating heat of the sunshine upon my face. In spite of the perfection of the day the beach yet remained virtually uninhabited.  This particular seam of the beach is a product of the private homes adjoining it.  Both to the south and the north for example there are resorts which attract peripheral crowds; but here the sweep of the beach and its remoteness from public venues contribute to a comforting and unanticipated sense of isolation.

I rebooted my gears southerly along the beach to Sea Pines Beach Club where I exited and returned home late afternoon. We afterwards shopped for groceries and domestic provisions, both with great success. The Fitness record today to Marker 67A is 18.04 Km.