I love the water. I love being in the water.  I love being on the water and I love looking at the water. One day, I would like to live in a place overlooking the water. I am not afraid of the water, and in fact I am very comfortable and at peace in the water.

I can thank my grandmother for this. As a young child, I was scared of the water. I think in retrospect, it may have been the dark water of Ontario lakes that scared me. You cannot see the bottom. To this day, when someone mentions the name Lake Chemong to my sister and I 50 years after the fact, still look at one another and say, “It is weedy, you know”.  My grandmother tricked me though into the abyss by asking me to help her pick up stones at the beach of their cottage at ever increasing depths. Before you knew it, “I got it wet” as she would say.

Fast forward 40 years later and when Janny, my now wife, visited Canada for the first time and we went to Muskoka, she, a woman of the sea, was reluctant to get into the water as it was dark and could not see the bottom. Maybe there is something to all of this.

And so while I love the water,  I have a love/hate relationship with being next to the water, and beaches specifically.

I like the idea of the beach a lot. But often, it is one of those things, “Good idea, bad execution.” I am blessed to spend time in the South of France. Marseille, the city of our home, while technically in Provence, is not really Peter Mayle’s environs of A Year in Provence. Marseille is a port city; always has and always will be. And there is lots and lots of coast between Marseille and east to Nice and the Italian border. It is along this coast and by the sea where we spend our time. It is also along this coast that my wife’s father waded ashore in August 1944 as part of Operation Dragoon, the liberation by the Allies of Southern France.

This coast has many lovely beaches, each with their own textures, from sand to the stones of Nice to the small little pebbles of Monaco. There are also many places with no beaches at all, but rather rock protruding from or above the sea at varying angles. They seem very popular and at times they look like human rookeries, but those are definitely not for me.

Janny and I  do not go to the beach every day in the summer, but we do go plenty. Each trip to the beach is a different theme and each with its own timetable procedure checklist. Our machzan (the Hebrew word for storeroom) is organized with the precision of an armory to be able to grab and go with what is needed for the appropriate beach expedition.

Below is a sample of the types of trips with the ever increasing list of the gear that is required.

The Morning Swim

I have renewed my love for swimming this past summer and I would for daily exercise often get up early, and put the gear in a backpack (goggles, cap, bandana, water bottle, inflatable orange safety buoy that I tie around my waist for visibility (that also has an emergency whistle just in case) flip flops and a bike lock (this is Marseille)) and coast on my bike  down to the sea a bit over two kilometres away from our house. I lock the bike, keys go into a small zip pocket on my trunks (I like that word; my grandmother used it) walk from bike lock up to the water with flip flops (stones and pebbles) and hop in and swim, or as my grandmother would also say, schvim.

The water bottle mentioned above served two purposes, the first of course for drinking, but the second for a quick cleaning schpritz of my feet of sand and pebbles before putting back on cleated bike shoes (no socks) for the ride home. Drying of feet was accomplished with the bandana. I would then hop on my bike and ride home.

The Private Beach

We often go to private beaches with transats (loungers) and parasols included. That said there is still gear that needs to be collected and transported, including the sun screen bag, the book and magazine bag, water shoes, for entry and exit of beach with rocks and pebbles, towel for transat as well as towel clip to keep towel on transat. Waterproof phone case, hats, sun glasses, reading glasses (“Where are my glasses?”) are all required. For me, the fair skinned, once red head freckle faced Russian/Polish stock fella, a sun shirt, my white cycling arm sun protectors, together with a buff, which worn together does really make me look like a real schmendrick who should have just stayed home in the dark. For Janny, a coverup, or not, which is just really an excuse to buy another coverup from the coverup guy who walks the beach. And, an empty plastic 1.5l water bottle. Why? I hate sand, and more, I hate sand on my feet. I cannot be comfortable with sandy feet. So, when I go in the water, I take the empty water bottle, fill it up and when back at the transat, I can then rinse off my feet of all sand and sand byproducts. I do not mind, and in fact I love walking along a beach, but I cannot stand the beach on my feet when lying on my transat. Otherwise, the sand gets everywhere.

The big problem with the private beach is the confluence of private beach etiquette and mother nature. I need shade, Janny does not. I noticed this summer that the sun does not seem to stay in the same place all day. It seems to move, mostly from east to west. Wherever the parasol is at the moment is great, but wait 20 minutes, and you have to move it. But it is a private beach. You need to get the attention of the parasol guy (they are all guys) and plead with him to move the staked or weighted parasol to another location. Or, if you are lucky and in stock, rent a second parasol. You cannot move your transat as they all have to be in the same line and there is no room anyway being squished in like sardines.

And as a private beach, Janny needs to continuously remind me that it is not appropriate to string up my clothesline under the parasol and dry out my trunks and that I cannot install my side shade panel to the next for when the sun sometimes moves to the west. Sigh.

This all assumes there is no wind, and there is always wind. And as soon as the wind reaches the red alert threshold, the parasol guys all of a sudden swoop down and confiscate the parasol projectiles leaving me again fully exposed to the usually moving sun. I seem to be the only one who cares.

You don’t have to worry about food at the private beach. There is inevitably service at the transat and there is usually a restaurant a few metres from the transat area. The food is generally good and the rose is always cold.

Oh yes, and as for the COVID summer of 2020, forget it. Social distancing was really nothing but a myth.

The Public Beach

In addition to all of the aforementioned gear, there is quite literally an entire 4×4 with seats down full of gear that accompanies us to the beach. It is really for this reason that we had to get a bigger car.

First, you need cover from that dangerous and unpredictable sun. So, we have a big parasol. The parasol, due to wind needs to be anchored. So, after much experimentation, I now use a metal staking system that itself requires a mallet. There are also emergency guy wires with stakes and a disk, the purpose of which is to bury in the sand for strength.

Sometimes, the parasol is not enough. We have a small pop up tent, two in fact. One is the more traditional beach tent with an exterior bungee metal frame. It too has stakes. The other beach tent is the pop out of bag and five second set up variety. All of which is good until it is time to put that puppy back in the bag from whence it came. Oh for crap sake. I have on more than one occasion at the end of a long day had to pull out my phone showing 2% charge to find a youtube video on how to put said tent back in the bag. I also have the aforementioned side sun shades together with clips to attach to the tent if the sun decides to move west. And yes the trunk drying system is then attached to the parasol. There is a separate bag of assorted string, carabiners, s-hooks and what not to attach just about anything to anything.

You have to sit somewhere. We have two small folding beach chairs tied together for transportation by a bungee cord. Janny has put me on notice that next year we need to get two folding transats.

We have a repurposed diving mat, ostensibly used to place diving gear on to keep clean, that we place on the ground under our chairs but far out enough that my feet can be on it as opposed to the sand. And yes, I do have my empty plastic water bottle for foot rinsing procedures, especially before entering the tents. Janny did draw the line a few years ago when I pulled out and filled with seawater a repurposed square plastic dishwashing tub so that I could submerge my feet in it prior to walking on the mat to my chair. I will try that one again next year.

We bring a “changing poncho”. Think of a terrycloth rain poncho. You put it on and then you are able to change into and out of your trunks without exposing yourself to the rest of the beach, not that there is anything really wrong with that.

Activity gear includes snorkel and paddleball.

And, of course, you have to eat. More gear. We have a cooler and whicker picnic basket, a water thermos and a café thermos. This is France. Sometimes we plan our trip to the public beach to coincide with the local market day. On such occasions, in addition to Janny doing a pre beach “tour”, which may include the purchase of a cover-up, we buy fresh fruit, olives,  and seek out the paella vendor for our lunch feast. Sometimes we will keep it simple with a fresh baguette and an assortment of charcuterie and fromage (the fromage for me, as I married the only woman in all of France who does not like fromage).  We then pull out the small folding table – no need to be barbarians – and enjoy. Next year, maybe I will bring my hibachi for a little BBQ. More gear. Bigger 4×4.

The public beach in the lovely town of Bandol is our favourite. Not that it is the nicest beach we have ever been to, but the municipal parking lot costing four euros for the  day is located right between the beach and the market.

A Note on Nice

Janny grew up in Nice, the jewel of the Cote d’Azure. It is famous for the Promenade des Anglais and its beaches. Warning for some – the beaches are stone Think of stones the size of river rock you would decorate your garden with. Not sand with a little stone and rock; all stone. No sand. For me, it is perfect. I have never been cleaner in my life than at the Nice beach. And the sound of the beach with the water against the stone is very unique and special.  Admittedly, walking is a bit of a learned art, but hence the invention of the water shoe. Case solved. The private beaches have it figured out though as they lay carpet paths from the transats to the Sea.

By the time we get home after a day at the public beach, we are caput from the sun, the heat, the wind, the packing, making camp, breaking camp and driving home into the setting sun (it moved again) and cleaning all the gear of sand and salt before putting it back into the machzan. Life in the South of France is very tiring and stressful! We of course forget about it soon after as we find ourselves again loading up the 4×4 for another visit to the  beach.

If we do not see you, you may very well see us.