Mastering The Atlantic Ocean

When I was a kid, our family went to the beach a couple of times a week.  My parents would choose which beach to go to.  Sometimes they chose a beach on a placid bay or harbor.  Sometimes, they chose a beach on the Atlantic Ocean.

If our family was going to the Atlantic Ocean, I always wished there was turbulence in the atmosphere that would make the Atlantic’s waves big and scary.  When the waves were at their scariest, I could show off.  I could show off because I had mastered the Atlantic Ocean.

To master the Atlantic Ocean, I looked for the point where the waves crested and crashed downwards.  Children and elderly people stayed in shallow water, and never went out to the crest point, because the ocean could be nasty.  If a wave crashed down on you, it would whack you in the face, knock you backwards, and drag you helplessly towards shore over a bed of annoying pebbles and jagged seashells.

I would wade out to the crest point.  The key was getting past the cresting wave – I learned to do this by judging a wave’s arc and diving through the wave at the right moment to emerge safely on the other side.  This got me out far enough where a cresting wave could not smash me.

I then swam farther out to take advantage of the waves themselves.  By looking at a wave, I could determine if it had enough energy to take me back to shore.  If a wave was right, I started swimming toward shore on top of the wave, which lifted me and carried me shoreward.  Because I was on top of it, the wave did not smash me.

Instead the Atlantic Ocean delivered me to shore speedily and gently, avoiding the annoying pebbles and jagged seashells.  I wound up in shallow water amongst the legs of all the young and the elderly who were standing there.  I hoped that they saw me showing off and riding the wave to shore.

When I went away to college, the media turned a spotlight on the Pacific Ocean.

The radio started playing songs about guys riding surfboards on the Pacific Ocean while wearing bathing suits imprinted with tropical flowers.  Annette Funicello sang “A Surfer’s Life For Me”, and the Beach Boys celebrated “Surfin’ USA”.  There were movies about guys riding surfboards on the Pacific Ocean while wearing bathing suits imprinted with tropical flowers.  

These guys were having an Endless Summer or playing Beach Blanket Bingo.  People on television started using phrases like “hang ten” and “wipe-out”.

I felt like I was missing out on something.  I had never been to the Pacific Ocean.  I did not own a surfboard.  None of my bathing suits had tropical flowers on them. 

Then a light went on.  I realized that, for years, I had been doing what surfers do.  I had shown off and ridden waves, but not with a surfboard, I rode the waves with my body. I was a surfer – a bodysurfer who had mastered the Atlantic Ocean.

Unfortunately, there was one problem with body surfing on the Atlantic Ocean: it meant that I would never get to meet Annette Funicello, because she was waiting on a blanket on the wrong side of the Continent.


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Here is the 1965 movie trailer for Beach Blanket Bingo, with a cameo by Buster Keaton dancing The Swim ("Kinda like the monkey, kinda like the twist").  A 3-minute video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx_NdCKznUM

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy.