A short walk west from Surfside Beach towards Miacomet Beach on Nantucket is a bathing suit optional beach. I couldn’t resist walking there to sketch. I have done figure drawings for decades, so this was a treat. If you know me at all, you know I am a vampire. I got skin caner on my nose removed years ago which was a barbaric operation in which I watched a staple remove a large chunk of flesh inches from my eyes. Just the idea of the C word keeps me from worshiping the sun anymore. While I sketched others soaking up the sun with every inch of their being on this Nantucket beach, I was under a beach umbrella, wrapped in several beach towels with not an inch of skin exposed to the sun.
I liked that there were rainbow colored beach umbrellas scattered along the beach. I made me feel like the Nantucket natives were in solidarity with Orlando after the Pulse Nightclub massacre the previous month. The surf at this beach was particularly strong. I was on the top of a small cliff of sand that the surf had eroded. As the tide came in, it got closer to the bottom of the sand cliff I was resting on to of. As I sketched, the base of the sand was eroded and without warning, the cliff gave way and I tumbled down into the water below. Other than falling in, I didn’t swim very far out. I heard that the rip tides are rather strong and the waves were honestly intimidating. I preferred the pleasure of watching and sketching sun bathers to the surf.