North Beach

Imagine my delight a few days ago when I checked the schedule and discovered that I was assigned to be on the North Beach bike (quad). This is probably the most coveted position for a lifeguard, with only Pine Island (due to free breakky and unlimited coffee and peanut butter packets all day) . There are a few reasons why this is:

1. You're on a quad all day. Great fun at low tide, not so fun at high tide.
2. You get to talk to people all day
3. You're constantly patroling, meaning there's always something new
4. Station 7 food heaven. This is by far the best part of a north beach day. Station 7 is stock full of copious amounts of delicious food ranging from deli meats to jimmy dean breakfast sandwiches to homemade dinners to icecream and cookies. I come back about 7 lbs heavier on a north beach day.
5. The wild horses

When coming into Corolla, the main road on the island is route 12. If you continue to drive north on 12, you will eventually hit sand. 12 literally turns into a sand high way, right on the beach, and this is north beach. It is only accessible with 4 wheel drive vehicles (and idiots still ignore this and they get their little cars stuck in the sand). If you think the southern part of corolla is chill, north beach is on a whole new level- you can set up camp right from your car, grill out all day, and another person might not be seen for miles. It's about 10 miles of blissful white sandy beach. There is also a town that is only accessible via sand highway called Corova. I reckon some pretty interesting people must live there if they choose to completely isolate themselves from the rest of mankind. I've heard going back there is like jumping back to the 70's- and thinking about the people who live there kinda makes me think of "The Hills have Eyes".

So how do we patrol such a vast expanse of beach? Well, there are two of us, ad we ride from the horse fence all the way up to the Virginia state line, advising people as we pass. A lot of the beach looks the same, so there are certain landmarks that cue us into our location. The green bouy is milepost 14, penny's hill is milepost 15, etc. Its really important to know your location and these land marks because when there is a call, we must be able to know the location and respond accordingly.

So on my day on north beach, I was lucky enough to have low tide fall right in the middle of the day. This is GREAT because it makes driving the quad so easy. It was perfecty sunny, not too many people out, and the wild horses were out in strong numbers, wading by the water to avoid the west wind flies. At one point, a whole bunch of them were galloping together in the surf, kicking up water as they passed by, manes flowing in the wind. Not sure too many other places of work have watching wild horses play on their daily to-do list.