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Fortress 5280Home \ Fortresses \ May 2000 \ 5280
Location: Lanikai Beach |
Sunday,
May 28, 2000
Fortress #12 was created at Lanikai Beach. Lisa,
Meiko, and I all went together. When we got there, it was mostly
cloudy, which I generally prefer. High
tide was at noon and since we got there right at noon, and the tide would
be heading out, there would be no
drainage system today. We only had a couple hours to spend, so I decided
to build just a nice, small fortress with two towers and a connecting
arch.
-Shut up and get to the pictures-
I like it when it's cloudy because it's less tiring doing the work of moving all the sand. When the sun in blazing, it can be very draining. Since I didn't bring a bucket, I piled the sand all by hand today. It took almost exactly 30 minutes, then I started carving.
Although it was cloudy, many people were at the beach and several walked past and complimented me on the fortress, even early on, before it was really taking shape. A few people took pictures.
Then a little kid came by and watched for a while, asking me questions as I worked. His name was Quentin. After a while, I asked if he wanted to try it out. He said yes, so I helped him pile up a mound of his own and lent him one of my tools.
My fortress went well. I didn't have a whole lot of time, but in the next hour and a half, I carved a couple of nice towers and a good arch. There wasn't enough time to put a lot of detail into the arch--it seems there's never enough time--but I was satisfied with the final results. Simple, but elegant.
Quentin's brother came by and helped him with his castle. It turned out pretty good for a first try. Once we were finished with our fortresses though, that's where our philosophies toward sand castles ended: I took pictures of mine, and he did a flying leap into his. He also tried out my arch by crawling under it. It passed the test. As Lisa, Meiko and I were getting our stuff together to leave, I told Quentin to tell anyone who walked by that he made the fortress. He giggled at the idea.
I took many pictures, then we left the beach with the fortress still intact. Since I built it at high tide, at noon, it had the potential to stand until sometime around midnight. However, a little girl, who also built her own small castle next to mine, was quite interested in whether or not I would knock mine down when I was finished. And as we walked away, we saw Quentin and his brother goofing around, his older brother trying to push him into the fortress. As we turned the last corner, leaving the beach, I couldn't help smiling, remembering times when me and my brothers goof around like that. How long did it stand? I guess I'll never know. But it lives on here in pictures.
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