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Tag: Salty Dawg

Salty Dawg: The gift of getting salty

Written by Ernie Vanderwalt on . Posted in Editorial, Opinion.

I got in the Gulf tonight shortly before sunset, the light doing that thing it does where the water turns the color of something you can’t quite name, gold sliding into rose sliding into the gray as the day is closing out. I’d spent the afternoon at the cancer center with my neighbor. Treatment. A different kind of light in that building, all fluorescent and fixed, no seasons in it at all.

Most days I live in the fast lane like everyone else, somewhere to be, some sense of forward motion. My neighbor lived there too, until he didn’t. Illness doesn’t ask permission before it takes the exit for you. One day you’re driving with everyone else and the next you’re pulled onto the shoulder, watching traffic go by at a speed you no longer have access to.

Driving him home, I felt something I couldn’t name yet. Like standing on a bridge that isn’t quite the mainland on either side, suspended over water, a strange sense of in-between. That feeling followed me to the sunset – it does that too, slows you down whether you were ready for it or not. Tonight I needed it.

My neighbor used to swim too. Before the diagnosis, he had a whole retirement mapped out in Punta del Este, Uruguay. A house near the water. Years he could see clearly enough to plan around. Cancer took that plan apart. He can’t get in the water right now. No salt water on his skin. No sunset from the sandbar. His seasons have been interrupted in a way mine haven’t, not yet, at least not today.

I didn’t say any of this to him in the car. We talked about other things. But I’ve been carrying it since, and by the time I hit the water tonight it had turned into something pensive. So, I dove under, came up salty, and let the sunset do its thing. 

I floated longer than I meant to. Not swimming, just drifting. The Gulf fills me with gratitude, mindful of my mortality – finite, like the sunset, beautifully ending each day. 

Out there, life feels short in the best way. A pelican folded its wings and dropped straight into the water 20 feet off, gone and back up with a fish before I’d finished the thought I was having. 

I dove down again, swimming around the bottom looking for white-bleached sand dollars. Nothing out there lasts, and somehow that’s the whole reason it’s worth loving. I surfaced smiling for no good reason I could name.

The sun always sets. Fast lane becomes shoulder. Health becomes treatment. Ordinary Tuesdays become the ones you wish you’d noticed while you were still speeding past them.

But tonight, simple light on flat, calm water. Nothing to fix, nothing to figure out. Just salt on my skin and a sky doing the one thing it does better than anything else, going out gloriously.

Get salty while the season allows it. Some evenings, that alone is the prayer.

Salty Dawg: Two dolphins

Written by Ernie Vanderwalt on . Posted in Beach, Dolphins, Outdoors.

Three days without salt. That’s a long stretch for a man who counts water as oxygen, and I felt every hour of it. A tropical storm had stirred the Gulf into a wild mess, and my wife made her case for staying dry with the kind of concern that only comes from love. I told her I heard her. I stayed on the sand until the surge dropped.

Today the flag was yellow. Medium hazard, exercise caution. The waves were breaking in loose, unorganized sets instead of our usual easy roll, and underwater visibility was very limited. On the sea floor I could still make out a few things, but sand kept being churned up by the surge. Found a bunch of bleached sand dollars. It always makes me feel like a kid on Christmas.

Then I swam past the breakers, out where the Gulf was still working off its temper, and the day turned into a different world entirely.

A dolphin came flying up out of the water – a full breach, its body glistening in the morning sun as it hung briefly suspended in the air. There was so much sheer joy in that moment – a wild creature bursting with the pure delight of being alive. I shouted. Couldn’t help it. Out there alone with the storm’s leftovers still churning around me, this wild thing threw itself into the air for no reason but the glee of it.

I didn’t think the day had another gift in it. It did.

A second dolphin swam in close, closer than they usually bother with, a fresh catch still flashing in its mouth. And then it started tossing the fish – up, catch, and up again – like it knew exactly who was watching. I floated there, holding still, serene. An audience of one. I felt treasured.

When it finally peeled off and disappeared, I stayed floating, savoring it. A quiet sense of completeness. It’s hard to explain. I swim this Gulf nearly every day but do hope I never lose my sense of awe when handed a gift like that. A kindness bigger than the both of us, showing up uninvited amid a storm’s aftermath.

I almost didn’t write this one down. Some things feel smaller the moment you try to hand them to somebody else in words. But some things ask to be witnessed out loud anyway, clumsy telling and all.

So here it is. Two dolphins, one restless Gulf, and a reminder that showing up – even on the days the flag says think twice – is usually where the good stuff is hiding.

Salty Dawg: Wade In

Written by Ernie Vanderwalt on . Posted in Beach, Outdoors.

Most people meet Anna Maria Island the same way: They pull off Gulf Drive, kick off their sandals and walk down to the shore, sand so sugary and white. They stand there a minute. Maybe snap a photo and admire the clouds at sunset. The breeze comes off the water just right, and it feels like enough.

It is enough, for most people.

But the beach was never the point. The beach is just where the story starts.

I have a confession. I cannot just look at the Gulf. I have to get in it. Ankles first, the way it goes for everybody. Cool water lapping over sunburned feet, sand shifting underneath so you can never quite stand still. That part is easy. That part is the postcard. But if you stop at the ankles, you have only dipped a toe into what this place actually is.

So, I keep walking. Knees next, and the water finds the hem of your shorts. You make a decision, whether you meant to or not, about whether today is a look day or a swim day. Then the hips, and there’s no pretending anymore. You’re wet. You’ve committed. The Gulf does not care how far you meant to go. It only cares how far you’re willing to go.

Goggles down, and under I go.

This is where Anna Maria stops being a postcard and starts being a real place with an actual bottom, grass beds swaying sideways in the current, a sandbar a few hundred yards out where the water goes shallow again and the sun lights the sand up like a second sky underneath you. I swim out there most mornings scanning the bottom for sand dollars, those flat disks half buried until the light catches them right. Finding one still feels like the ocean handing you something on purpose, just for showing up.

I used to think that was the whole draw. The hunt. Turns out that’s only half of it.

I’m drawn toward the sea the way some folks are addicted to having coffee in the morning.

Salt water isn’t a hobby for me. It’s closer to a requirement. I love the noise of the world going quiet the second I go under. I love the salt drying tight on my skin after, salting my beard by the time I’m walking back to the truck, so even hours later I catch a whiff of Gulf every time I run a hand across my jaw.

Folks ask why I swim so much, why a grown man gets this worked up over a sand dollar. I used to try explaining it. The light underwater at sunrise. The weightlessness after a week where everything on land felt heavy. Honestly, I’ve stopped trying.

Some things you either feel or you don’t. If you’ve ever stood at the edge of the Gulf and felt the pull to keep walking past your ankles, past the point where turning back is still easy, you already know what I’m talking about.

Come wade in with me. Ankles first. We’ll let the rest follow.