Category Archives: Beach Photos

Water Sport: Oddball challenge, 2016, Week 20

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I love this photo and I’ve been saving it  because it has never quite fit in to any challenge..Then it occurred to me that this is the purpose of the odd-ball challenge! I love it because of everything that is going on.  The little boy “shooting” his brother with water ammo, the stance of the little girl, the fishing poles of the fishermen repeating the lines of the water guns and the other swimmers and fisherman in the surf.  One thing I love about the beach is that there is always something going on––a fact perfectly represented by this photo.

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/05/15/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-2016-week-20/

What Have We Done To Our Earth?

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(Click to enlarge photos, and for some reason it doesn’t show the commentary unless you click on them, either.)

Left our prints upon it
Fenced it
Torn it asunder
Burned it
Used it and returned to it
Taken shade in it
Appreciated its beauty

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/earth/

Beach Walk

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We still love La Manzanilla, don't we? We know that all will soon be back to normal, the laguna once more sealed off, the crocodiles sealed off from the beaches and coastline, and the beaches and water once more inviting to human habitation.
It was 35 years ago that I first ran away from home to go live at the beach.  For the past 15 years, I have never lived more than 4 hours away from the ocean, and for 20 years before that, I was within 20 miles of it. During these years, I have written hundreds of pages of poems and stories about the the beach, and as I sat here for two hours today, reworking what perhaps was one of the first poems I ever wrote as I spent a year going to the beach every day to write, it suddenly occurred to me that I would rather be doing art, using the boxes of material collected on the beach during the two months I spent there this year, than writing about the experience. I’ve already done that, and here is where you can find it: https://judydykstrabrown.com/category/beach-poems/

That URL will get you to the most recent beach poems. (You’ll need to scroll down past this one once you’ve clicked on the URL above.)  To see earlier ones, go to the archives (near the bottom of the scroll next to a poem entitled “flip flop”)  and select November, 2014 or December, 2014 for older poems.

Please join me in beach combing by taking a walk backwards—as far as you choose to go—through three years of beach poems—reading and looking at what you wish. Some poems you may just walk by or pick up in your hands and then cast away. Others you may examine closely, reading them in their entirety. And some, I hope, you will choose to store away on the shelf of your mind to remind you that you came from the sea and it is always there for you to go back to.

Now, for the rest of the day, I’m going to do what I’ve wanted to do for a month and a half now—unpack some of the boxes of shells, stones, bones, sand, corroded metal, driftwood and assorted beach trash found on the beach as well as uncompleted “found” sculptures begun in January and February. Then, I’ll  “do” for a day instead of writing about it.

Please enjoy your beach combing today as I’ll enjoy mine.

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https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/beach/

Bubble Talk

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For Jennifer’s “bubble” challenge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Double Snap!

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Double Snap!

“Clap hands,” they said, “Clap hands
to the music,” and we all obeyed
that 50’s and 60’s band
that we might have followed anywhere–
out the door and across the street into the ocean
like geriatric children following a Pied Piper.

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As we had when the music was new,
we gyrated and sweated,
bumped hips, jitterbugged,
did swing and wild improvisation

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at Palapa Joe’s.
Joe himself barefoot at the keyboard,

a bookend to Denise at the drums.
And we? We are as hot
as this February night.

“Oh to be young again” is not in anyone’s vocabulary,
for we are teenagers again below the Tropic of Cancer.
In the ocean or in front of it,
sipping the sunset from tiny cobalt glasses,

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watching children move toy trucks down sandy roads
of their imagination

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and teenagers elfin in the surf.

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The sun falling falling farther northwards every day
until that March day we waited for every year when it sank
directly behind the offshore island.

Snap. It is gone.
Double snap. So are we.

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Here’s more of a photo story about Palapa Joe’s if you are interested:
 https://judydykstrabrown.com/2016/02/28/last-open-mike-of-the-season-at-palapa-joes/

The NaPoWriMo prompt was “double” and the WordPress prompt was “snap” so I combined them today…Here are links to those prompt sites in case you want to play along:
http://www.napowrimo.net/day-fifteen-2/
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/snap/

Between the Dark and the Daylight

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“Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day’s occupations
That is known as the children’s hour.”
                    –excerpt from The Children’s Hour” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

(Click on first photo and arrows to enlarge all photographs.)

 

 

The challenge was to choose a favorite poem and to publish photos to illustrate it.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/half-light/

Beach Combing

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IMG_3577“Beach Sunset” bone, shell, wood, coral, sponge, beach scrub and acrylic paint, 3.5 x 11 inches, Mixed media assemblage by Judy Dykstra-Brown, March, 2016

Beach Combing

I gave nothing to the sea, so she gave nothing back.
It was as though she looked and thought, “There’s nothing that you lack.”
It’s true that I have all I need of food and friends and fun,
and yet I still lack something that’s waiting to be won.

It isn’t gained by medals, by prizes or by fame,
for it is some other thing, bereft of rank or name.
There is some magic in the world that I go looking for
that has no set place where it lives, no windowpanes or door.

I’ve found it once or twice before, in places far afield
by accident, for if you try to force it, it won’t yield.
It isn’t found at parties, a fiesta nor a fete.
If you go looking for it, the magic will abate.

It’s found in how you do things, in what manner, at what pace.
If you reach too quickly, it will vanish with no trace.
I can’t tell you how to gain it, for I fear that I don’t know.
I just know that when I found it was when I was going slow.

Old Farts at the Beach

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Old Farts at the Beach

How do we choose what to hold on to as life slips away faster––
pulled by a stronger tide?
We want to fall through days with no plans,
like teenagers in a small town,
wandering around to find adventure where they can––
last minute expeditions
to small places
that prick delight.

From beaches piled so high with coral that it shreds our shoes,
we collect shells and driftwood shards and sea skate egg casings––
treasures with no larger price tags than precious time––
hints of another world we have earlier viewed like voyeurs from above,
our goggles misting over as that world darts by
too quickly to catch by hand or camera lens or
anything but memory.

None of us desire to waste time with anything else but wasting time.
“We are in this world to fart around,” Kurt Vonnegut once said,
and we want to have tattoos of it so we won’t forget––
all too aware that soon some of us will.

(Click on first photo to enlarge all photos, then on arrow to view all. When you have viewed all of the photos, click on X on the upper left side of thepage to come back to this page.)

 

Update: Want to see where we went for lunch? It’s called Restaurante La Mosca, aka The Fly Cafe. You can see photos HERE.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/fleeting/

Proof of the Cold Snap in La Manz

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(Click on first picture to enlarge photos,  then on arrows to view other photos in gallery.  When finished, Click on X at upper left of screen to return to this page.)

So what is different tonight? Fewer people, to be sure, well-bundled up against the cold, hair blowing in the wind. But, where is Daniel?
Oh. There he is heading into his house.
Then, back at the beach bar, who is that hooded guy, anw\yhow?
Can it be Daniel, not only in a shirt but in a hoodie????
Aha.. a lofted glass of tequila. Finally an identifying feature.

They’re saying on the message board that this is the coldest spell they remember for La Manz.  If you need any further proof of it, here are some shots with Daniel in first a shirt and then a hoodie!  May be your  last chance to see that phenomenon which ranks right up there with David Dagoli’s amazing shot of the agave field covered with snow or very heavy frost this morning. This is the first time in 6 years that I’ve seen Daniel in a shirt, much less a hoodie.

 

 

More Pacific Blues

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Duke and Daisy accompanied us to Tenacatita.  After the rains and high winds we’ve been having, it was too choppy to snorkel, so we all roamed the beach.  I picked up three bags of coral and shells from the beach and totally sliced open one water shoe. But, how could I be blue?  I left that to the ocean.

(Click on first picture to enlarge photos, then on arrows to view all photos. After viewing, click on X at upper left to return to this page.)

http://jennifernicholewells.com/2016/03/09/color-your-world-pacific-blue/