The little village here at San Pedrito continues to grow. There are now about 20 RVs and tents scattered along the high water mark of the free beach and the same on the other side of the arroyo in the paid section. Tenting on one side of us is a young couple from Israel and on the other side a single fellow from Oregon. Otherwise, the beach pretty much belongs to BCers.
The beach itself is evolving also. As the sands shift, rock outcroppings are emerging where there used to be only sand, and low tides are allowing for easier swimming.
Last week, dark skies and winds strong enough to sling sand into your eyes kicked up. Everyone started “battening down the hatches” in preparation for a storm and campers madly dug sand walls in front of their homes in case of high tides. We headed inside as droplets splattered down that we weren’t sure were from the waves or the sky.
All sorts of thoughts ran through my head...what if it’s a hurricane? If there is a tsunami, where is the easiest high ground to get to? What can we take in how much time? For someone who has experienced no natural disasters other than on television, it was a scary yet crazily exhilarating thought. But within a few hours, it all just started to deflate and calm down. Since then, it’s been consistently sunny and hot.
Yesterday brought another memorable experience. A camper and I were chatting on the beach as the sun was setting and we noticed a riot of splashing in the ocean right in front of us. Clearly there was a large school of fish in a feeding frenzy. Immediately all the anglers came running with their rods, casting towards the whitewater.
For the next hour, over a dozen tuna were brought in and we marvelled at the silhouettes of the fish in the waves backlit by the setting sun. Some friends offered Andrew their rod while they dealt with their latest catch, and he brought a fish in one the first cast! It wasn’t a tuna, but a thin angelfish-looking silver thing that we knew we wouldn’t eat, so friends quickly helped to get the hook out of its lip so we could return it to the ocean.
As magical as it all was, the funniest thing happened just before the anglers arrived. The camper I was talking to (we’ll call “Jodi”) was someone we met last year in, shall we say, quite unflattering circumstances. When she started screaming about the fish in the water, the first to arrive were our Israeli neighbours, who a) seem to eat/cook anything they can find, and b) both like to sunbathe topless. The Israelis weren’t interested in the larger fish in the water at first, but more into catching the little ones being chased that were now beached on the sand. While I was scooping these 2-inch fry and throwing them back into the ocean, they were gathering them up to cook. As their hands were getting full, Jodi decides to help them with their efforts and starts a conversation about how they planned to eat these tiny things...”are you going to fry them? Or eat them raw like right now?”. And then she decides she’s going to try them as sushi, ripping the head off one and starting to munch down on the little fish while me and the topless man and woman are standing there open-mouthed. I just didn’t know where to look. Surreal.
Later, we joined the successful fisherman for a fish feast, and a great night of stories and companionship. This is a treasure of a beach.
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