A Seaside Adventure

by Bethany

We're home!

Our road trip vacation was so much fun; we got to see lots of friends and family on the east coast. 

 Our favorite and most memorable adventure of the trip was one of our days in Cape Cod, MA.

It started out beautiful. Actually, the weather for our whole trip was quite nice, even though Hurricane Arthur threatened to (literally) dampen our plans on the coast. 

Our Dad rented a boat, as he loves to do, and we eagerly climbed in, donned in our new sun hats we bought the evening before. 

We were advised they were a practical accessory for a sunny day at sea. 

And of course they looked darling.  :)

We did have to hold on to them tightly on the occasion that Dad wanted to test the boat's top speed.

Hat overboard!

We found a deserted sand bar a little ways away from the large houses along the shore (but thankfully not too far, as you'll see).

The shore was littered with shells of all shapes and sizes; perfect for collecting!

Hats make nice baskets. :)

There were tons of horseshoe crabs on the beach, well, their empty shells. There was one we thought was alive in a tide pond, but it wasn't him that was moving, just the things that had decided to use him as a home. 

The shore was peppered with little holes, tunnels to the homes of little crabs. Becca caught sight of one before it could make it far into it's shelter, and we scooped the sand away to catch him. He was not happy about that.

"Who dares disturb me?"

A mermaid's purse. Either from a baby shark or manta ray.

Striped Bass Minnows

Snails

Little did we know, as we explored and combed the beach, we had landed the boat at high tide, and each moment we stayed there, the water was receding. 

Hmmm...maybe we should get going.

Dad pulled up the anchor and we started pushing the boat out, but it wasn't moving. The boat had barely a foot of water around it, and the keel was firming sunk into the wet sand. That boat wasn't going anywhere.

A couple taking their dog for a walk along the beach passed us.

"The tide is going out, you guys better get going!"

"We're from South Dakota," Mom told them. Translation: We have no idea what we're doing!

What? We've never had to worry about tides before. We have lakes and rivers; our experience with oceans is zippo.

As hard as we pushed, the boat didn't budge, and as more time passed, the more the water crept back. If we didn't get out now, we would be stranded until the next tide, 12 hours from now. Oh dear...

Dad called the rental company, thinking they could send someone to give us a tow, but would they make it here in time?

The couple walked by again, watching us fruitlessly struggle.

There was no way to just push the boat out, they said. We had to push with the direction of the keel, not against it, but still there wasn't much water.

There was a harbor nearby, with ferries coming and going. When the next ferry came by, the waves it would make might be enough to get us out, or push us further up on shore if we weren't careful, the couple told us.

So with the six of us geared to push at just the right moment, we waited, watching a ferry come in.

It felt like forever, but soon the approaching swell lifted the boat just a bit. We all pushed as hard as we could, and the boat moved! Our family scrambled into the boat as the man continued to push us out deep enough to lower the engine props.

And we were off! Back in the ocean, and thanking God for the help!

Our rescuers and their darling Aussie-doodle (Australian Shepherd/Standard Poodle)

It was was definitely a "new experience" as our Aunt Barb would say, and we learned quite a bit about boating in the ocean.

Another fun experience happened right after that. We had pulled into a little cove that Dad heard was good for swimming. Right before I climbed off the boat, I caught sight of something in the water.

Jellyfish!

I cut the top off a pop bottle, and we scooped one up to look at more closely.

Isn't God's design incredible? They were amazing little guys, so tiny and transparent. Later we found out they were harmless, but it's still a bit unnerving to swim with jellyfish, so we stayed in the boat.

We would like to share about some of the things we collected on our trip, thrift store/flea market finds, and some special gifts, but that will be another post.

Here's an ending question for you:

Do you know if this is a sea creature, or a plant?

We couldn't tell, but they were everywhere along the shore, and it is debated whether we saw one move.