Dreaming Of The Sea

SAND, SEA, SUN AND STONES

It's the 1st of June, and it seems like summer has arrived a little early this year. It's been nice and sunny for the last few days and people around here have been taking full advantage. Being a bank holiday weekend, the past three days have seen UK beaches overcrowded. We are on schedule to return to totally normal life when summer starts officially towards the end of this month but that is being slightly put in doubt now due to what's going on in India. Thoughts and prayers go out to the people of the great country of India.

I've been to the beach more than once already this year, but during the cold months. I've been at the seaside, but not in the water. I love the sea and I can't do without it for too long. This means I'm currently starting to yearn for the seaside, especially with the weather we're getting right now. I live on an island, yes, but it doesn't really feel like one. Perhaps if I lived closer to the coast, it would.

I strongly believe that if not for the great pandemic I would have made a move to a more islandy island by now. Maybe not moved completely, but at least obtained a nice sea-side apartment there for staying during the European winter months. After all, we would all have been multiple billionaires from the super-cycle non-pandemic attenuated crypto bull run right? Of course, it would have also been a crypto tax-free island, so that'd be a nice apartment and an orange lambo.

Even though the official advice this summer is not to book holidays, or pick a staycation instead, I can see a lot of people are going through the big hassle and travelling. There are people that have to travel of course. People have emergencies, family functions, work, e.t.c., but also people really need to get away. I can understand this feeling 100% since I also have it. I've been watching videos of beaches in Tanzania, Gambia, Senegal, Canary Islands, Ibiza, Kenya and so on. If only the science people would hurry up with that teleportation thing already.

Talking of which, thinking back to the nicest beaches I've ever been to in my life, they were nice mostly because of the people I was there with and not necessarily how they looked. There is a beach in Alexandria, Egypt, that comes top 3 because I once spent a weekend there with two of my best friends in university. One of them is Egyptian so we stayed at his family's beach hut. We had access to a sea-side public swimming pool so we were in there past midnight when the stars looked incredibly vivid. I can never forget that experience. What the beach was actually like, I can't quite remember.

Another one that comes top 3 is in Senegal. I was there with my sister and dad and we stayed in a hotel which was halfway on the sea. You could always hear the splashing waves underneath while relaxing on the balcony. It also created the most relaxing white noise, leaving to some of the most peaceful nights of sleep I've ever had.

The third top 3 was also in the same part of the world - somewhere between Senegal and Gambia. We had gone on a road trip with school and ended up in this remote place. Right next to the sea were a couple of salt lakes, some white, some pinkish. It was the first time I ever rode a horse on the beach, and it was with a couple of teachers and some really cool high school friends. Good times.

The funny thing about me and the seaside is that I don't actually do what most people go there for; swimming, sunbathing, e.t.c. I am there for the feeling of being there; the ability to walk barefoot in hot sand, the salty taste on my lips, the dry (dehydrated) wind, and of course the photography. The light you get on the beach, you can't get anywhere else.

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Peace & Love,

Adé