Most Beautiful Place

When asked to think of the most beautiful place, my mind drifts to Crooked Isle. My first concept of beach, water, beauty. 

 

I practically grew up aboard the Morning Star, my parents' island packet: countless nights spent anchored by Crooked Isle. My child-mind had no concept of the privilege of my experience, open ocean, clear water, abundant sea critters. Seldom did we see discarded bottles, human waste, or even other humans. Only orange tape marking turtle nests and tracks in the sand to signal the presence of other people.

The strip of sand stretched in either direction, and it was all ours. Ours to run along, barefoot on grainy white grounds, swatting sandflies and slicing feet on sharp shells. Ours to pick through scratchy scrub-coated sand dunes past crabs scrabbling sideways towards their holes. Hot sand burned underfoot, sliding sideways, closing the entrances to the crabs' caves and we rushed towards the waves, crushing shells underfoot, creating new sand. 

Birds in the air, on the beach, nesting in the trees. Huge beached trunks washed smooth by turbulent waters, pushed into the clean sand to be carved into castles and tea tables by my imagination. Miles of ground to walk, collecting shells and sanddollars. Picking through the crumbs seeking the prize of a whole conch or crackless clypeastroida, bleached by the sun. Our collections grew too great to carry and we picked the best, relinquishing the rest of our bounty back to the sea.

Always we saw critters: hermit crabs, horshoe crabs, starfish, jellyfish, sea urchins, dolphins, seagulls, sand crabs, stingrays, pelicans, even nesting eagles once in the trees. Sometimes jellies washed ashore or even bigger creatures, once a small shark. We splashed through the shallow waters of the bay side, scattering small fish and trying to squeeze the large ones, always slipping through our grasps. Next time. Always next time. We'd be back to squish through the warm sand and splash through the water. To climb the dunes and cross the flat, hot stretch to the beach side. To run into the waves and fill our fingers with shells and walk through the driftwood-laden sands that stretched endlessly into the horizon.