Sea Life

We have a good six more weeks of comfortable swimming in the Mediterranean.  The sea temperatures will slowly begin to drop from a toasty 81° in September to 75° in October, and on down to 70° in November.  With that in mind, we make a point to gear up, slather on the sunscreen and fall into the waves most every morning and again in the late afternoon.  Hiking around the beautiful mountains and in-depth exploration of the Seljuk, Roman and Ottoman architecture will have their moment when beach season winds down.

The sea here brings such simple and thoroughly satisfying pleasure.  After we settle our kanga on the beach, and I give the go-ahead, the boys invariably race in at top speed, falling or diving face first as they’re caught by a wave.  They then launch into their invented language to discuss their various wave jumping and body surfing strategies.  I, like the sensible adult that I am, linger for a while at the edge and admire the horizon while waters lap or foam bubbles around my ankles.  Twice we have seen brilliant day-glo rainbows arcing over the mountainous shoreline.   I’ve only brought my camera to the beach once, so I try to imprint images in my mind.  Hopefully they’ll stick around in there.

I've been struck by the fact that there are few to no other youngish children.  The beaches of Alanya are filled with either full-figured retirees or young couples with babies.  At first I speculated that there must be some other Turkish beach town that is the playground for northern European families with tweens.  This shows how off the grid I am.  Mid-September...school has definitely begun round the world.

Nevertheless, Booker and Seamus have managed the lack of kids their age pretty well.  They've recently adopted the very adorable children of our fellow-faculty neighbors:  Ruby, age 2 and Brewer, age 5.  I am grateful to see them ramp down their risk-taking behavior a little as a result of playing with these two younger ones.  Yesterday Booker was the Patient to Dr. Ruby, who gave him a clean bill of health after an examination with her plastic stethoscope.  And this morning, tough-guy Seamus was caught holding Brewer’s hand while walking down to the bus stop.