Swept Away

By mid-week, the weather finally moderated into one sunny, warm day after another.  Long runs in the morning, long walks on the beach in the afternoon.  Today we feasted on cold-boiled shrimp out on the deck with hush-puppies and coleslaw, that quintessential beach lunch that we like to have at least once while we are here.

This black cat was here last year, and I remember that I fed him a shrimp.  He hung around for a few days looking for more treats, but his coat was silky and his ribs were not showing so, although feral, he did not appear to be in danger of starving.

But yesterday I fed him a piece of salmon pastrami - a wonderful smoked salmon, thinly-sliced, that we discovered at Tommy's Market, just a half-mile down the road - and he devoured it eagerly.  This morning he returned with all of his friends, two other black cats and a skittish long-haired gray cat in the background.  We marveled that word had spread so quickly in the feline community, as if our generosity had been posted on a Facebook page.

Later, we walked on the beach and watched brown pelicans flying close to the waves, looking for their own lunch.  It is impressive to watch the way they fly in such precise formation.  I noticed that the waves were very powerful today, and it seemed that the rip current was active, too. 

As the afternoon lazed away, we sat in the sun and read books and soaked up the sun.  We heard a small engine approaching and this motorized paraglider appeared, flying up the beach to the north, and then a few minutes later back down to the south again.

But this solo paraglider had a more ominous purpose, we later learned.  The national news reported that a little boy (an only child), four-years old, walking with his mother on the beach in Kitty Hawk, just a few miles south of us, had been overpowered by a wave that knocked them both off their feet and then swept him away.  What a terrible thing!  The Washington Post reported, "Scouring the water for her son as another wave rushed in, the mother lost sight of him in the surf . . . He was gone."   Three words:  He was gone.  They found his hat washed up two miles north but never recovered his body.  "One man hovered over the waters in his powered paraglider for two hours in the hope of finding the boy."  So while we were enjoying a quiet lunch, wondering about this paraglider, a family had been devastated.

How dangerous this peaceful ocean can be sometimes!  We thought of this little boy and his family for days afterward, and kept them in our prayers.