One of the advantages of having recurringly visited Hilton Head Island, SC over the past 20 years is that we have acquired – albeit unwittingly – an estimable knowledge of the place. Specifically a grasp of what is within the proximity of Sea Pines where we have perched during our sojourns here. Historically I might have further qualified the acquaintance as being within cycling distance of our habitat for that is normally how we have insinuated the environment. This ambient limitation has however noticeably expanded; which is to say, the variance of my cycling communication has dwindled. This hindrance has in turn arisen by reason of nothing more astonishing than the effluxion of time and predictable human decomposition. While I generally snap my fingers at this predominantly unattractive evolution, I accept too that the constraint is real and not easily overcome. A degree of accommodation is required.

This morning after my constitutional cycle about nearby Lands End (2.68 MI should you care to know) and after having subsequently assuaged whatever blasphemy remained within me by purging my automobile at ZIPS Car Wash™ (I even cleansed the interior glass of the landau roof, both front and back), it occurred to me in an instant of sharp-wittedness that I might with ease have a peep of the beach by going down the little known and highly secluded Dune Lane parallel the North Atlantic Ocean. Dune Lane is a tiny roadway we discovered only several years ago. There is nothing inviting about any particular entrance to it. In fact just the contrary, everything is either concealed from view or, once accessed, otherwise partly perilous because it is so narrow. Indeed I am persuaded by the privacy of the beachfront mansions along this short path to avoid promotion of further identification. The secret however is that in keeping with what is indisputably a calculated design on all the barrier islands, there are here and there obscure pathways to the beach from the public right-of-way.

As you might well advance I have my favourite hidden tracks (there are in fact several along this curtailed route).  Nonetheless each is equally compelling for its own especial reasons. Today I chose not the nearest point of entry, rather the second, one which enabled me to station my vehicle briefly while I fulfilled the digestion of my nautical consumption. Parenthetically I had yesterday attempted a gander at the sea nearby Lands End but the weather was not then as brilliant as today nor frankly was the view quite as magnificent.

Seeing the sea again in its reckless majesty was unquestionably an instant elation. Nothing competes in my opinion. The vastness of sea, the beach and the horizon is incomparable. In addition it quelled what for weeks has been a burgeoning ambition; that is, to “go down to the sea again”.  Freedom and adventure may have inspired John Mansfield but my elevation is purely artistic and maybe both genealogical and biographical assuming we all have our origin in the sea.