The sunrise explained step by step, I wrote this in my notebook the day before I got the call about my dad

So I get to the beach when it is still dark out, at least an hour and a half before the actual sunrise. The actual sunrise is actually sort of anticlimactic in my humble opinion. The hour and a half that leads up to the sunrise is actually where the good stuff is at. I also take my own plastic Adirondack style chair, I hate sitting on the cold sand. Since we have gotten the little Nikon CoolPix S220 I also take that with me, along with the tripod. This camera has a setting that allows it to automatically take a shot every 30 seconds until you stop it. That is great for the time lapse videos I post after watching them. So right now the sunrise is happening about 7:30 so I am leaving the house about 5:45, this leaves me time to stop and get a coffee at the Gate Station and still make it the beach by 6:15am. It has been cold lately so I am bundled up in sweats and hoody and gloves, quite a sight I am sure. I pack up, chair balanced on my right shoulder, tripod with camera mounted and flash light (Maglight for protection) are in my right hand and my nectar of the gods is in my left hand. My phone and wallet and in my pockets and my composition book is tucked into the back of my pants. Like I said, quite a site I am sure but what do I care.

So this oratory is actually about the sunrise on Saturday morning, when it was coldest and cloudiest. I get out to my spot, sit my coffee down and then drop my chair. I set up the camera on the tripod about 10 feet away and get it started taking pictures automatically. Like the Ron Popeil line for some cooking gadget he used to hock, set it and forget it. I then get my chair situated, I dig the back legs in a bit because I like the chair to be raked back even more than the plastic Adirondack style already offers. This also puts me closer to the ground so that when I make a sand cup holder for my coffee, it is very close to my right hand, a very important detail I might add. I sit close to the reeds or saw grass whichever you want to call them, I had someone sneak up on me from behind once so I sit where that would be very difficult to do. Call me a pansy if you must but you never know what kind of crazy might be lurking around out there. So once I am settled in I start to clear my mind of all the non relevant things, the drive out and whether there is anyone lurking. That took about 5 minutes, in which time I was thoroughly enjoying my coffee, and wondering why I did not pick up two cups today with as cold as it is.

So there I sit in my quiet solitude, nothing but me, the sand, the crashing waves in the darkness. I find it very relaxing and invigorating. So there was only a sliver of moon to provide any light so it was really dark, I do know from my camera that the first light it saw was at 5:37. That camera uses the time and date for the file names of the pictures. Up to this time I had seen 2 folks, one running and one walking, I do not think either saw me sitting up by the dunes. As is starts to get light I start to notice some of my surroundings in a bit more detail. I can feel the wind is whipping down the beach, coming out of the northeast. With it, I see it brings little blobs of sea foam. With the wind blowing this hard, it is whipping the ocean into a frothing monster. The sea foam would dislodge and zoom across the smooth sand going very fast, it would then collide with the rougher sand that was not smoothed by the surf and then start to slow and degrade into nothingness. I remember thinking that I was not sure what caused sea foam to be created in the first place and thought I would look that up when I got home. I found that it is actually the remains of colonies of phytoplankton. As they mature, they form globular colonies. When these colonies die and are picked up by the wind they form the foam you see washing up on the shore – WHO KNEW THAT?

So with some light I could now see the cloud cover was low and very grey, I started to wonder if I would get wet this morning. As the earth rotated at nearly 17 miles per minute it quickly revealed I was not alone on the beach. There were many, many little crabs scurrying around, digging the holes that would protect them during the heat of the day. I watch in amazement as “panfry” furiously digs into the sand, I nicknamed him panfry – it that so wrong? I also learned panfry had another trick up his sleeve. Now old panfry’s eyes stick straight up off his head and he can lean them over, independently of each other, to clean them. That sounds somewhat normal now I am typing it but – that is crazy to watch with your own eyes – truly a magical moment of nature. As panfry gets all dug in I go about watching the grey overcast sky ad it lightens up. It was amazing, the clouds began to thin and part, right above my head. It was like an old bear trap opening to the west on one side and the east on the other. The clouds over my head and to my rear receded to the west and the clouds above and in front of me receded to the east and all the sudden, the splendor of a blanket of stars was revealed to me in a very dramatic fashion. One minute clouds so thick, low and grey I thought I could touch them, the next a sky filled with twinkling stars – how cool it was!

As the clouds receded and the sun continued its progression in the sky I start to notice other things. Like every morning, the little birds start showing up. I am not positive what kind of birds they are, sand pipers I think, but they are first of the flighted to show, every morning. I say flighted in the loosest terms, I have seen them fly but I believe they prefer to walk and walk they do my friends. They are scampering about looking for whatever little bits of food have been washed up on the shore. They walk really fast, no I mean REALLY fast! They can cover ground at an incredible rate, moving faster than any Olympian ever dreamed of running. They are fun to watch, you can not even see their legs moving, only them, zooming along and then they stop, peck on the sand, go again. Hilarious I tell ya. It is about this time that I start to contemplate the waves. Their never ending procession towards the beach to crash violently to a watery end, delivering food for the little birdies. Their progression is as constant as the march of time, time that seems to be slipping away, falling through our fingers like the sand on the beach. It reminds me how important it is to do and say the things we want to say and do, who knows when our hour glass is going to run out of sand. Some folks fear the reminder that our time is limited, me I think Soren, from the Star Trek movie said it best, time is the fire in which we burn. We have a supply of fuel and we had better live like we mean it and at least try to get it all done before that fire goes out because when that happens, our time is up.

The sky continues to lighten and the next of the flighted begin to arrive, the rat with wings, or seagulls as so many like to call them. They make their presence known with the constant squawking, them and waves go hand in hand when you go to the beach. They are inseparable, at least after the sun comes up. Next are the pelicans, the larger of the morning flighted ones. One thing I have never found is why they always seem to fly from the north to the south. I have never seen one going from south to north as long as I have been coming out to the beach in this location. I can find no information that explains it either, I suppose that will continue to be one of the great imponderables of my life. It is now that it is light enough to see most everything and everyone on the beach. I notice the piles of seaweed laying around everywhere, the weather has ripped it from it mooring, beat it into a wet spinach consistency and scattered it all over the beach, poor seaweed. By this time my friend Roy is back from his walk, has retrieved his chair, and joined me to see the sun come up. It was still pretty cloudy but I was sure we would see it.

Across the horizon was a wall of clouds with a very flat top, it looked like a giant grey wall that went from horizon to horizon. For those who have ever been to Berlin, before the wall came down, it reminded me of that. East Berlin was the communist side and it was very drab and grey, when looking across from the west it appeared very dreary. The west on the other hand was clean and shiny and as I looked at this cloud bank this side appeared very dreary and over the wall of clouds I could tell the sun was back there. Blue sky’s and white puffy clouds all over the place. When the sun popped over the clouds it provided instantaneous warmth, warmth I could feel on my face. I remember thinking the residents of east Berlin must have felt a similar warmth when the Berlin wall came down. I sat and basked in the glory of this beautiful day for about another half an hour and then was headed on home. Another morning spent purging my mental storage facilities of all the gunk that builds up – Beautiful!