Little Beach, Big Waves

Little Beach is a small patch of sand cradled among scraggy rocks along the Marginal Way in Ogunquit, Maine, a resort village at the southern tip of the state. The Marginal Way is a path that wraps around the rocks and trees and seems to descend precipitously into the ocean; yet it guides visitors from Ogunquit to Perkins Cove, a fishing village dotted with artists' easles and boats that seem posed for a postcard.

A quiet refuge from the umbrella-clad beach that extends several miles from Ogunquit to Welles, Little Beach is filled with sharp rocks, salt-bathed pebbles and water that chills the eyes at first glance. It is that cold.

This is my memory of Little Beach, of course, forty years or so ago, when I was 10 and my Dad took me to the waterside in the morning while my Mom took an art lesson. I had my trusty float, a white blow-up raft adorned with turquoise blue designs and orange fish, equipped with a "see-through" panel to the sea below.

Did I mention that I couldn't swim?

My Dad, a veteran reporter at age 35 or so, and a proverbial news hound, opened his chair, his newspaper and sat on the beach, facing the water. Enjoying the warming summer sun that morning, he put on his sunglasses and started to read the paper. I ventured into the water with my float. Eager to catch a special sea shell or watch the barnacles bathe in the rising tide, I waded out further and further, clinging to the rocks that seemed close to shore.

Within minutes, I saw that the float had been punctured by one of the rocks and was slowing leaking air into the sea -- and ceasing to hold me safely in its orange fish and turquoise blue seascape.

"Come on out, Dad! The water's great!", I shouted to Dad with the enthusiasm of a game-show contestant.

"I'll be out in a while, I'm going to sit and read my paper right now," he answered.

A few minutes passed and the float continued losing air. I waved eagerly to Dad,gleefully announcing how warm the water felt, he waved back, looking increasingly annoyed at my insistence he come into the water.

"Dad, come on in! It's really something!", I called out again. Would he think I was careless, that I did something to make the little float deflate?

"I'm still reading the paper," he said, without looking up. He didn't know my float was quickly sinking underneath me because I didn't let my terror show. I continued smiling enthusiastically - "Oh, come on in!"

He was only about 20 feet away and yet I persisted in trying to solve the "Titanic" moment for myself. Still trying to appear calm, I casually peered around at various rocks to see how to form a "bridge" back to the beach.

But it was hopeless. I held onto one of the rocks and finally, several minutes later, called out in tears, "Dad, the float got punctured! I'm out too far! I'm going to drown!"

Now that I was finally ready to shout "SOS!", the ruptured float was seeping air faster than I could tread water in the rising tide. Dad came out into the water to guide me back to the shore.

He strolled out to the rocks and, maybe more important than saving me in five feet of water, he didn't laugh at my predicament.I proudly dragged the brine-soaked float out of the water behind me and brought it home to Goshen, NY.