Frozen Ocean and Snow Dunes: Not Your Average Day At The Beach

Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.  I've been visiting this small seaside resort at least once a year since before I was born.  I've seen the surf churned up by passing hurricanes, fled the fury of intense summer thunderstorms, and endured a creepy week of waiting for a dead body to wash ashore.  I've even seen a little snow, once or twice.  This past weekend, after an estimated 60-plus visits to this place, I saw something I had never witnessed before - and in all likelihood will not see again.

Let's start with the dunes.

Dune - mostly snow - looking north.

Detail, dune snow - looking south.

Okay - I've seen this, before.  Snow on the sand.  A little unusual for Delaware, but no big deal.  I would not have bothered to come down off of the boardwalk in my totally inappropriate shoes for snow.  

Here's what intrigued me...

Frozen Ocean.

That's ice.  A lot of it. In the Atlantic ocean. The MID-Atlantic ocean. Sorry shoes - must get a closer look at this...

High-ice-- I mean, tide.

Shaken, not stirred.  Okay, stirred.

Polar bear, or just polar bear-size chunk of ice?

Now I know how sea glass is made.

The next day, sleet and freezing rain had me shooting from my room above the boardwalk.  The ice had thickened...

The cold never bothered me anyway.  Wait - yes it does!

No swimming near jetty.

Mmm... drippy!

As amazing as it was to see the ocean full of ice, nearly motionless, and eerily quiet, it was still nice to see this - on the third day - just as I was about to start singing Moby's "When It's Cold I'd Like To Die..."

Sunreturn.  Order is restored.

It felt good to get the camera out for a little exercise.  Maybe I'll do it again, soon...