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Fortress A080Home \ Fortresses \ Oct 2000 \ A080
Location: Bellows Beach |
Sunday, October 8, 2000
A travesty. Heartbreaking. Tragic. Gloom. Despair. Anguish. I went to Bellows Beach with
Lisa. High tide was around 12:15 pm so
the tide would be on its way out and there would be no drainage system. I
figured I'd build two towers as tall as I could with a tall arch between them. Since I didn't
have to worry about the tide, I thought, why not build the two towers one behind
the other for a change instead of next to each other. So I did. We had friends meeting us
later and I entertained thoughts of building a big wall stretching out from the
fortress. Maybe more towers.
-Shut up and get to the pictures-
The sun was out, but it was partly cloudy and even sprinkled a coupe of times, a welcome relief from the heat.
We got there about 1:30. I started on the towers and for 90 minutes solid I piled sand. A little kid came by full of curiosity and wanted to help. His name was Jessie. I told him strategically that I was going to make other fortresses in the surrounding area and that he could start piling up the sand for one of them. He was a pretty cool little kid and was happy to do that. The tide was receding and we were getting short on water, so he made a little channel to coax the water into our construction pool. I told him to watch out for the jelly fish--there were tons of them on the beach today. They kept floating up into the construction pool of wet sand. One floated up and landed on the back of my hand and I immediately felt the burn. I threw the little bubble down the beach and rubbed my hand with sand. Jessie went hunting around the beach throwing balls of sand at the ones that had washed ashore, popping the little bastards.
I continued to pile the sand. The towers were tall--both over my head when standing in the pit. (I'm 5" 7' by the way. Oh, I mean, 6" 4'.) Anyway, they were tall. I was just about to put the last handful of sand on the rear tower when tragedy first struck: the top collapsed and took part of the wall with it. The wall was still a good four feet tall and I figured I could still get a nice arch out of it. Even with the top of the tower gone, there was plenty of sand.
Then our friends Andy and Paula showed up with their dogs. Andy's cousin Emma was visiting from England and she was there too. The sand piles were not carved yet so there wasn't much to look at, but Andy's dog Pip seemed to think they were good enough to take a leak on.
I started carving a really beautiful fortress. I made an arch, not too wide, but higher than I think I have ever made, and I put some really nice detail into it. I must say, while it wasn't my biggest arch, it may have been the nicest one I've ever carved. I continued on the tall tower that remained. Andy and Paula, anxious to show Emma more of the islands, left after a while with their dogs, but thought the fortress was nice so far. I continued. But then, I noticed a small crack on the arch, a sign of possible doom. The fortress didn't seem to be sliding, it was pretty solid, but I did get the camera and take two pictures, just in case this really was a sign of doom.
A family walked by and was intrigued by the fortress. The guy asked me how big the an imaginary door would be to get a sense of scale and I said I picture the people that live in the fortress to be about 3/4" tall. He held his thumb and finger apart about that distance and said yeah, he pictured them about that big too. He had squatted down to get a better look through the arch. I told them I was trying to finish before it got dark (the clouds had rolled in and it was getting late) so I could take pictures. I told them about this web site and the woman wrote down the URL. If you're reading this, "Hi."
After they walked away, I concentrated on finishing. I was moving right along when I guess that crack I noticed earlier really was a sign of doom. Without notice, the entire top two thirds of the tower just fell, taking the beautiful arch with it. I've never been mad at the sand for a collapse before, that just goes with the territory, but I was so close to being finished and taking a bunch of nice photographs... and I got a little pissed this time. I was even thinking about putting in a second arch, through the remaining part of the first tower. But all of that ended with the second collapse. I stood there for a second looking at what was left, but there was nothing to salvage. I threw a clump of sand at the fortress. I didn't feel any better so I threw my knife at it, hard, and it went right through what was left of the arch--put a hole through it--and landed in the sand on the other side. I can never do this normally, but with nothing to salvage, I did it again and again until I felt a little better. Then I threw everything in the Jeep and we left.
But I'll be back again, a little wiser about tall towers. And I'll make one bigger.
I'm just glad I at least got two pictures of it, although no real close-ups. Oh, but that beautiful arch...
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