see the Atlantic

I live in New York City, so I see the Atlantic Ocean anytime I’m at any of the NYC or Long Island beaches. I love looking at the ocean!

I grew up only a few hours’ drive from the Atlantic ocean, and unlike many of my peers, I never took it for granted. Staggeringly vast and cold, even in the summer (sure, it’s warm compared to the Atlantic in the winter, but compared to the Caribbean, Hawaii, or your neighborhood pool, it’s a very cold body of water). When plunge your whole warm, dry body into the churning, salty waves as they lick the sand and you feel that surge of shock and exhilaration that always accompanies sudden forays into cold water, and you finally emerge and hour later, shivering and tired from fighting the currents and tides, you feel as though it’s one of the few times in your life when you’ve truly left your modern life of safety belts and childproofed everything to live; to really live.

See it in Florida if you want the commercialized version, surrounded by bronzed, preening vanity; see it in New Jersey, in Cape May, Stone Harbor, or Wlldwood if you want to recapture, in your own way, the romance of the golden age of the Boardwalk; see it in Maine, at Acadia National Park if you want the pure, cold rush of diving into one of the wild parts of the Ocean, surrounded by wilderness.

When you come out from swimming in the Atlantic, and an undertoe or rip-current has taken you a mile down the shoreline to an unfamiliar beach, you begin to truly feel small and at the mercy of one of the mightiest forces on our planet.

I’ve lived in North Carolina for 20 years, so I’ve been to the beaches here my whole life … also the coast in Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. I’ve cruised the Caribbean portion via a trip to the Bahamas as well, and have been to Jamaica. Some parts of the Atlantic coast are nasty, while other parts are gorgeous. I suppose as with most beach areas, it just depends on the area you visit. :)

I’ve been on the Jersey shore, the Florida shore, Bermuda, Curacao, New York City/Long Island, Maine, Boston, etc. etc.