Saturday dawned clear-skied and brilliant blue, a welcome change after Friday night’s hail storm. For the second week in a row, I rose with the early birds, awakening at an hour when most people were still fast asleep. But there was a special reason to get moving with the sun — we were heading to the beach!

We’d heard fearsome tales of the Bay Bridge and its mythical traffic jams, so Rudi wanted to get an especially early jump on the trip. I am not, however, a morning person, so Rudi’s desired start time inched later and later until it was a more reasonable 7 a.m. when we walked out the door.

Suffice it to say, it was a beautiful day for spending at the shore. Bethany Beach, Delaware, is a cute town, reminiscent of some of the beach towns along Route 1 in Connecticut. It isn’t as built up as some of the other beaches in the area, such as Ocean City and Rehoboth, supposedly are, and its boardwalk offers only a small selection of vendors, so it tends to attract more families than singles. Having grown up at family beaches, I felt right at home with little kids scrambling around us.

By one, a little more than two hours of our visit had lapsed, and I was already thinking fondly of the day as one of the nicest days I’d spent at the beach this decade. Sarah, Rudi, and I were just reapplying sun screen when I happened to look up, glancing between bodies at the water off to my right.

“I think,” I announced, trying to keep my cool, “that I just saw either a dolphin or a shark.” (more…)