Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Motion In My Ocean

I decided to get out of the hotel/lab this weekend a little and visit the beach. Not having any amigos around with whom to do this, I decided to go for a run in the sand. Maps.google.com showed me a close beach with public access, and I visited it. In my favorite pair of Sprawl shorts and some tennies, I started jogging. The sand was a tan, medium fine grit and quite loose. After about a mile though, the sand turned into a cocaine white, baby powder soft substance. The crazy thing is...this sand squeeked! Every single step made the same sound as when you step on hard packed snow after the temp drops below -20 degrees Celcius (look it up [The] America, it's time we grow up and act metric!).

After the run I took a dip in one of the largest bathtubs in the world: The gulf of Mexico. The surf was crashing in at a whopping 6 inches in 4 second sets and the riptide was pure death! Being a long shallow shore off of a beach full of aged and wealthy individuals fat off of over priced food, I went out and swam by myself.

When I got about 50 feet off shore (still only waist deep), I noticed that there was a mini school of minnow sized fish that were chill'in about a foot away from me at all times. If I jetted my foot out or threw my hand into the water, they would retreat at the same rate. I presumed that the little fellows were just using me as a big brother to not be consumed by bigger fish scared of my presence.

I dabbled around screwing with the fish for about 15 minutes when I noticed that all of the seagulls within about 200 meters of me were racing to an area of water about 60 meters down the shore. The seagulls were screaming like a 2am crowd trying to get a brawl from that oh-so-famous pushing stage to full on fists-a-flyin slugfest.

The water below the birds was popping like crazy too. A hurricane of turbulence was bubbling up on the surface, and 10-20 cm fish (silver with yellowish fins) were airing about a foot out of the water (the distance from my heel to the tip of my large toe, not that silly english unit).

This turbulance was moving towards me too...FAST!

50 meters...30 meters...10 meters! Holy crap this was coming at me fast and I was the only jackass in the way!

Looking into the water I saw schools of the minnows fleeing from the death jaws of the silver fish. The school was getting thick.

A couple minnows slam into me! Then more....and more...and MORE!

I would assume that 50-100 minnows gave themselves brain damage against my legs/waist in about 5 seconds. Then the silver fish raced past me (smart enough to avoid my solid shape). Hot on the silver fishs' tails (pun intended) were the seagulls.

I haven't seen the movie, but I'm sure this is what filming Alfred Hitchcocks's "The Birds" felt like. Each one gave little to no shit about me on their quests to catch fish.

Being the manly man that I am, I ducked down to avoid the certain death that contact with webbed feet would guarantee. Mini fish, small fish and birds have never scared me so much.

Side note: I'm also too scared to catch one of the may lizards outside of the hotel. Every time I go for one I feel like I'm going to crush the lil' guy like Lennie petting the rabbits in "Of Mice and Men".

Hopefully I'll man-up a bit when in Montana. And by man-up, I mean have sex with a 16 year old: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of_consent_in_North_America

Stupid ass Florida...thanks for the heads up lawyer!

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