Beach Ettiquette?

It was mid-September when I finally made it to the beach for the first time this summer. The crashing waves, the singing birds, the clear blue skies, and a few golden hours to just lie back and relax in the warmth of the long-awaited sun. It was fantastic! I went boogey-boarding and splashed around in the waves for 45 minutes. I was having a really great time…until they arrived.

You know them – the family with the cooler so heavy it takes three people to carry it. The family who chooses a spot on the beach not five feet from yours. The family who – inexplicably – smells of cigarette smoke even though none of them are smoking at that moment. And, worst of all, the family who apparently can’t bear to listen to the sound of the ocean even though they’ve just driven 50 kilometers to be near it – so they haul a great big freakin’ radio out to the middle of nowhere and fire up some half-tuned, static-ridden, tinny little radio station.

To say that this makes me crazy would be an understatement. But did I ask these beachgoers to turn their radio off? No. I’m not a big fan of confrontations, and have I mentioned that all of the people in this family were, uh, large? And that they had a lot of tattoos? Serious tattoos, not the girly little tramp-stamp kind of tattoos. And that we were 50 kilometers from any decent medical facility?

It made me think about the ways people behave in public spaces. Is there such a thing as beach etiquette? Is the beach an “anything goes” kind of place, where my right to have a quiet and peaceful time extends only as far as the edge of my faux-Mexican beach blanket?

I guess it depends on the culture of the beach you’re on. I was at Martinique on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore, which I would consider a “nature lovers’” beach, as opposed to Queensland, which might be considered a “party people” beach. Maybe these folks were confused about just where they’d ended up. (Perhaps the weighty cooler was not entirely filled with Grape Nehi and cherry cola, and they’d gotten into it before they arrived?) Maybe they didn’t think that doing back-flips in front of me was spoiling my view of the water. Perhaps they considered themselves very nice to look at, in an “animal kingdom” sort of way. Anyway, my point is that I was not interested in any kind of social interaction with them, or anyone else on the beach, really. I just wanted to hang with my peeps and enjoy the sun and the soothing sounds of nature, but that clearly was not going to be possible any more. So I packed up my beach blanket and went home.


It’s not as pathetic as it sounds; I was almost ready to go home anyway. And I did have another chance to hit the beach one more time. That’s all I wanted: just one more gorgeous day to simply relax by the sea, soak up some rays, and enjoy the peace and relative quiet of the pounding surf. Without static or back-flips. Would Emily Post say that’s too much to ask?