I spent the entire day on the beach and almost all of it was under the cover of a canopy. Still, I got overheated. I think the sea breeze is deceiving…the breeze blows and gives you the impression that you are cooling off but if you don’t drink enough fluids, and I know I don’t normally, you will pay for it later. But still, it was a gorgeous, perfect beach day. I parked down on the beach so I wouldn’t have to carry stuff down and back up to the condo and that was so handy…I can now see why people park there. It was really busy on the beach yesterday so I can imagine it will only get worse over the weekend. I love the constant parade of cars driving up and down the beach. Muscle cars, sports cars, jacked-up pickup trucks slowly cruise by, the music of the driver’s generation blaring through the open windows. My favorite was this guy in the yellow hot rod, flames painted down the sides, surf board sticking out of the rumble seat. So very cool! I had to smile at the 60-something guy, rocking his sensible sedan, grooving to some ’60-something music from his stock stereo. Uber cool!

There was some bit of excitement on the pier along about noon. One of the fishermen hooked something that was obviously big and it started really putting up a fight. It took the guy (plus two or three other guys taking shifts helping him) at least three to four hours to get this thing into shore. As time passed and the fight was apparent, more and more people showed up on the beach to watch this guy work…hard. I moseyed over to get a closer look and perhaps capture a photo of what appeared for all intents and purposes to be a trophy catch. There must have been a hundred people there when all of a sudden the word started trickling through the crowd that the guy had hooked a ray. What started out as something exciting soon turned into something fairly horrifying.

When he got the ray within a few yards of the shore, he went out with a grappling hook to bring it in and the crowd went ballistic. There were shouts of “Let it go!” and “No! Don’t kill it…you don’t need to gaff it!” But, this angler was determined he was keeping this catch and it made me very sad, and sickened, to see this beautiful, old, HUGE ray waving its wings in a frantic attempt to escape. It must have weighed 200 pounds, easy. The grappling hook tore at the flesh of this stunning creature and I had to turn away. The crowd became bold and started moving in on the anglers, three of them now trying to land this ray. Apparently, the crowd thought the ray was a manta, which is protected. But, still…it was pretty big and really impressive and the crowd didn’t want to see it killed. Things got heated. First a lifeguard, then two beach security guards, then several policemen arrived. People started getting arrested. I sat at a safe distance watching through binoculars as the scene played out before me. Finally, the fishermen managed to hoist the ray up to the pier, the crowd dispersed, and it was business as usual. But I couldn’t get the image of that magnificent ray with a wingspan as big as a car, going up, up, up and out of sight. And for what? Was he going to eat it? I can’t imagine a three-hundred pound ray being very tasty. I’ve never seen one mounted and hung on a wall. So, that leaves getting his picture taken so he could have bragging rights and that just didn’t sit well with me. I felt sick for hours afterwards. He could have easily cut the line and let this dinosaur of the deep live to fight another day. The hook would have soon rusted away.

That definitely put a damper on the day for me. I don’t understand how someone could kill that ray for sport. At first I was on the side of the angler…it was his catch. But when I saw the ray, and what he had to do to land it, I think I became a vegetarian. It was senseless to me and just made me sad. If I go out on the beach again today, it won’t be for as long, and it will definitely be further from the fishing pier. ❤️

““Just ask the animals, and they will teach you. Ask the birds of the sky, and they will tell you. Speak to the earth, and it will instruct you. Let the fish in the sea speak to you. For they all know that my disaster has come from the hand of the Lord. For the life of every living thing is in his hand, and the breath of every human being.”
‭‭Job‬ ‭12:7-10‬ ‭NLT‬‬