My Beautiful Sunrise this morning involved crime scene tape and I was not happy!

So I got up this morning to go and watch the sunrise, by myself this morning. I stumble through the house getting ready, finding shorts, long sleeve T-shirt, shoes and camera – yes a long sleeve T-shirt it was cold this morning at a brisk 72 degrees with a breeze blowing in from the North East. After gathering my crap and getting it all in the Jalopy along with my plastic Adirondack style chair I made my way to the Gate station for my morning tribute to Juan Valdez and his coffee bean picking ass (donkey that is). So off to the beach, I hit the first red light and there is someone right on my bumper, keep in mind that it is not even 5:30am and it is a four lane road. I remember thinking what is wrong with this person, well about 15 femtoseconds after the light turned green this person starts with the horn. For those who do not know a femtosecond is it is one quadrillionth, or one billionth of one millionth of a second, he was on the horn pretty quickly is my point here. I do as I always do when someone beeps at me to hurry up at a light, kick it out of gear and throw my hands up in the air. I drive a 51 year old jalopy and it takes me no less than 489 femtoseconds to get the three on the tree from neutral to first gear, what was this dude thinking. Well after a few more toots of the horn and a passage of about 10 seconds he backs up a bit and goes around me. I was bummed that no one was around to witness this idiocy other than me, not a lot of folks tooling around at 5:30 Sunday mornings.


Anyway the rest of my trip to the beach was uneventful and I hit all but that one light green all the way to the beach, I thought my day has already started to improve. I pull in at the end of Atlantic Bvld and as soon as I get out of the car I hear someone arguing, loudly. I look around to see if I can spy with my little eye the dispute, no joy I could not see anyone but I could hear the string of profanities clearly and was impressed with combinations of words that were being using. Being a Sailor for ten years I do not blush and am not easily impressed with profanity or profanity strings but she was what I like to call a grand master in the art – and it is an art form. Now it is still dark at 5:30 and after getting my camera, coffee, chair and flashlight I start heading to the beach. Before I get to the sand I see the very pissed off woman I had been listening to since I shut the car off. She is a short Blond woman who is just screaming at a much taller dark haired woman. I am not sure what was going on but I was able to figure out that the taller one had made some bad decision that had negatively impacted the shorter woman in some way. They were in the middle of the walk way to the beach and while I normally walk right down the center I thought this morning I would take the sidewalk that is on the right, the furthest from where Thelma and Louise were at for fear that I may be somehow dragged into some bizarre plot. As I make my way closer they both see me and stop yelling, and are just kind of watching me, not good I remember thinking.


Just as I am almost past them the tall woman asks me, “would you like to beat up some guy for us”? I learned in my youth that taking the law into your own hands never works out well. There were no assailants present and they were apparently in no immediate danger, they were in a well lit area and I saw no bruises or bleeding. I replied “no, I have no interest in that” and did not stop walking. If someone were assailing them at that moment I would have obviously stepped in but those after the altercation skirmishes never end good. In fact, in my case the police used words like premeditated, retaliatory and revenge – never good words when speaking with the police. I picked up my pace and as I made my way onto the beach I glanced back and saw them continuing away from the beach to what looked like their car. Glad to have that altercation behind me I worked my way over to my spot and got settled in for the sunrise. After only a few minutes I saw Roy, I guy I know in a cursory way, make his way onto the beach and head north for his morning walk. A few minutes later an animal control truck made his way onto the beach, at 5:40 on a Sunday morning. I was amazed that they could find someone to work so early on the weekend but then I got to wondering, what was he looking for driving on the beach? Could it be a little crabs that scurry around in the sand? Could it be an errant jelly fish who somehow had gotten beached? What could it be? I wished when he hit me with the searchlight I would have flagged him and asked him what he was looking for and why was he here so early.


So after only about 30 minutes it was just starting to get light I look to the south and see another set of headlights on the beach. I quickly realize that this set is moving really fast, I wondered if I had stumbled into a beach race he was moving so fast. At that same moment a see a couple of people walking onto the beach rather quickly and started wondering what is going on here. Well it did not take long to realize they were cops, I remember thinking what is going on and immediately thought of the two women who I passed on the way in. They police immediately setup the police tape and cordoned off the area. There are like three cops there now and all are taking pictures of the area as well searching around looking for something. Before long the two women are on the beach and talking with the police, they were huddled taking statements for a good 45 minutes. Maybe I was paranoid but it seemed they were looking in my direction quite a bit. About this time Roy comes back and says good morning and asks what is going on over there, I reply with a sunrise like that it is indeed a good morning and I tell him I have no idea what is up over there.


After the area was combed for evidence, they had gathered four brown paper sacks worth of something and the women were gone I walked over and told them of the encounter I had with the two women when I arrived. The officer told me that is was a simple battery case and thanked me for the information and it was clear he was done talking to me as he turned and walked away. So back I went to my chair, I stopped to talk to Roy and he was concerned about the safety of the area and was glad it was not a murder investigation. The thought of that made me laugh but I guess stranger things have happened. When I was leaving I saw the two women making their way from the hotel to their car and I noticed they were tourists, from Nebraska no less. I felt bad for them because I realized this crime will never be solved and was probably the result of partying with the locals who knew they were not from around here. I have no basis for that assumption but that is what I thought. Overall I was able to enjoy the sunrise but my neck is a bit stiff from continually glancing to my right to see what was going on.