When I was in Boy Scouts in the early 1960s, we went to the coast, camping near some sand dunes. One guy brought a metal detector.
We found all kinds of old WWII junk – ammo belts, canteens, lots of forks and spoons.
Then we hit the jackpot. Something big. We dug down to it. One of the scoutmasters came over to see what we had found. He took one look and had us get the hell away from it. He was a Korean War vet and we had found a mine.
The adults made us watch from up on the top of a dune while they kept everyone from going near the hole.
Eventually some men came out and packed explosives into our hole. Then they made sand bags and put them on top of the explosives.
I don’t know if it was a live mine or a dummy one, but they made a great explosion.
We never went camping at the coast again.
what’s the weirdest thing you found or seen at the beach?
One time I saw a bunch of teens feeding the Seagulls food with laxatives in them.. Let’s just say the beach watch covered in shit the next day.
Beached Jellyfish. They’re weird, and extremely fun to poke with sticks. They jiggle so much Bill Cosby should do their commercials.
My brother and I with all of our friends were on vacation in Florida and went out on the pier at night. First we walked by a lady who whipped out a crack pipe, we made eye contact and put it back in her pocket. We continued walking and got to the end of the pier. As we gazed out into the ocean I noticed a helicopter with a search light about a mile down the beach scanning the shore getting closer and closer. Then I looked out on the water and noticed something floating with a small light. As it floated closer I came to the realization that it was people on a raft trying to make it to shore. Suddenly the helicopter was right on top of us about 200 feet up, spotlight shining. Three people on the raft jumped in the water and made it to shore. The light turned off and the helicopter left.
13 year old me and my friend were digging in the sand. My friend pulls out a used condom from the sand. We didn’t dig in the sand after that for a while…
I recently lost my dad. I was on holiday and I left my husband and son to say goodbye to the beach, it was windy and raining and I was feeling sad. I missed my dad, I was scared about my health and to be honest I was ready to end everything. I gathered some big stones and had them in my pockets.
I don’t know exactly how I talked myself out of it. I turned and said out loud, “dad let me find one big perfect piece of sea glass” and I’d take it as a sign. I walked a bit further and stumbled over my own feet, there next to a large rock on the shingles was a lovely piece of sea glass. Nearby there was a crab claw. I took that as my sign, dad always used to chase me with crabs, because I’m scared of them. He always used to torment me when we took family walks with the dogs on the beach.
I gathered up my thoughts along with the sea glass and I went back to my husband and son. My dad fought so hard to beat cancer and live, (unfortunately it was a super aggressive cancer and he lost his fight) I felt that I owed it to him to get better from my own illness. I believe my dad sent me a sign with that seaglass, I’d been combing the beach and found very little, only little tiny bits.
We have been to nudist camps many times so we knew our way around. My fav story is one time some guys came around where me, one of my sisters, and mom were in those rubber band lounge chairs. Anyway, one of the guys volunteered to go up and get us some cold cokes. But as he stood up he started howling and crying out. At first we had no idea what happened. Well, he was sitting cross wise on the chair and when he tried to stand up his balls had got caught in the rubber bands and he was hurting trust me. Anyway my mom got him to stand still as she got down on her knees and tried to gently push them back through the bands while he gritted his teeth.
I mean it shouldn’t be funny but we all laughed so hard I got the hiccups. We didn’t see him for the rest of the weekend. I was maybe only 13 or so and had no idea how sensitive guys are there. As a nurse now I can tell you I definitely learned from that experience. We still crack up.