Sandcastles = Wellfleet Art?

Sandcastles are one of the reasons I enjoy walking the beach in summer. Kids love to build them, and I love to see a kid at work, total concentration on his or her face. Pleasure and pride are two observable emotions. Sand is often a new element that produces real joy.

I have admired lots of different types of sandcastles on the beaches of Wellfleet over the years: castles with a moat, castles decorated with shells and seaweed, free-form castles, castles created with a turreted pail.

A lot of the young visitors are from the city. Their only previous experience may be sandboxes in parks or schoolyards. Sand is particularly satisfying because it's so malleable. Kids get right down and dirty, allowing their inner-artists to take command.

Digging is fun, too. Some kids prefer to dig holes and watch them fill up with water. I wonder what that says about their personality? Who knows.

My kids used to do both.

Sometimes you encounter kids who like to be buried in the sand.

I can remember one year in particular, at Newcomb Hollow. My son had carved out a pyramid like this one, using a broken shell. Or, two pyramids. I've forgotten exactly how many there were and no photos were taken, but those pyramids were perfect. We were all admiring his handiwork, when my younger daughter pulled on the sleeve of my beach jacket. She wanted me to check out her structure, too. I turned, took a look, and blinked. What lay before me was a recreation of Hatshepshut's temple at Deir el-Bahri. My daughter was too young to have seen a photo, of that much I am sure. This story sounds preposterous, and yet it's true.

When you were a kid, did you build sandcastles at the beach, or dig holes? Can sandcastles be considered as art?

Wellfleet in September = Paradise 4 Kids

September is the best month to introduce small children to the ocean. This week, for instance, the blue-green Atlantic purrs like a kitten. Gentle waves splash onto the shore. Puffy white clouds billow on the horizon. On such a day, children can feel safe at the beach. They can get their feet wet without the fear of being overwhelmed by undertow. Their enthusiasm will remain intact once they return home. And, the beach offers so many sensory experiences. There's the prickly sensation of salt water on skin, the sand sucking at toes, the repetitive motion of the waves as they roll towards shore. Sand is such a marvelous play medium. The beach is, in fact, like a giant sandbox.

Yesterday two kids, had built an impressive array of sand castles at LeCount Hollow Beach. Parents hovered nearby. As decoration, the four-year-olds had used what they found. I especially liked the spindly sponge that had been erected as a drawbridge, in vertical position. There had been numerous crab carcasses available, as well as small dead sharks and seagull feathers.

When I saw the perfect round towers, I wondered how much help the children had received from their eager entourage. The beach has been known to bring out the inner child in all of us. How can anyone resist?

In September, the seals are out, too, popping up, here and there, as if to say, “Hello. Come on in! The water’s fine.”

We saw a Lithuanian family, mesmerized by several seals. There was also a group of adults standing totally still. Camera in hand, or peering through binoculars from a distance, the tourists could not get enough of our local wildlife.

The seals are obviously social creatures, as curious about us as we are of them. They demand attention in such a jovial way. A group of us stood on the shore watching the performance as one seal dove head-first into a wave, right past a buddy who was swimming belly-up, without a care in the world.

“Are the seals eating sharks?” a tourist asked Sven.

“No, it’s the other way round,” he said. “A great white was sighted in Truro.”

On our way back, a well-tanned man carrying several beach stones, patted Sven on the back and said, “This beats the office any day.”

So true!

Many of us still have beach memories from childhood. I hated the sand getting caught in my bathing suit. I also remember sitting under our blue beach umbrella here in Wellfleet, when my brother was a baby, and collecting shells. What do you remember?