The path to the beach

The path to the beach was along a broken down boardwalk, half-buried in sand. As I reached the brow of the sand dunes the sight of the sparkling blue water on the horizon gave me a burst of childish excitement. I jumped over the top and ran down the steep dunes, my legs flailing beneath me as the scorching sand fell away from my feet.

When I got down to the shore I had to shield my eyes from the brilliant haze. A fresh, salty breeze parted my hair and cooled my sun-beaten brow. The shallow water lapped around my toes sending a wash of goose-pimples up my legs and along my arms.

I walked out to sea, wading deeper and deeper until the water came up to my waste and then I plunged in and swam out into the small, sheltered cove. Floating on my back I watched the seaguls circling in the blue sky while the calm ocean cradled me in its watery arms.

After a while I swam back to shore and heaved myself out of the water and up the beach. Glistening droplets rolled down my skin and sand stuck to my body and got between my toes. I lay down, closed my eyes and let the late afternoon sun warm my body.

I originally wrote this for a project I was doing at Swansea university but I never ended up using it.

It was a gorgeous day and I had nothing else to do so I got on my bike and cycled round to the Gower and found a spot to myself in the dunes.

The illustration above was done for a client but was also never used and it seemed to fit this piece of prose fairly well.