Tag: Revere Beach

Enchanted Beach Houses

~ mehopper

I live in the Northeast, and I hate January!

I know it’s “almost” February, but I’m not a huge fan of that either.

This is the view outside my window right now.

There’s more winter left than I can take, no matter what the ground hog says this weekend.

Look at my weekend forecast from yesterday.

What the heck is freezing spray advisory anyway? I had to look it up on Wikipedia.

Freezing Spray Advisory is issued by the National Weather Service to warn sea vessels and sometimes road vehicles near the shoreline that accumulation of freezing water droplets and icing due to a combination of cold suspended droplets, wind, and cold air, so vessel movement is possible, however, accumulations are not expected to reach rates of 2 cm per hour, or else a heavy freezing spray watch, warning or a specific notice would be issued. — Wikipedia

Lovely.

I guess I should be grateful that it’s not a heavy freezing spray warning, right?

Somehow I just can’t muster that gratitude.

Being the beach person that I am, it’s at times like this that I do what I’ve dubbed “beachscrolling” — it’s a bit like doomscrolling, but far less depressing.

For example, my favorite walk between King’s Beach and Nahant Beach looks like this now.

So I go visit various web pages where I’ve posted this 360° image that I took years ago.

When I go to walk at Revere Beach, this is what it looks like at the Wonderland MBTA Station.

Here’s a view from the South end of the beach.

That’s when I get a bit of joy out of re-visiting this 360° image that I took a few summers ago.

Finally, sometimes I get bored with my own still pictures of local beaches. That’s when I start beachscrolling on YouTube looking for other people’s 360° videos of beaches that I loved visiting in the past. This is probably more aptly dubbed “beachstrolling.”

Here’s a 360° video by Ryan Kawailani Ozawa for beachstrolling on Waikiki Beach.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

Ryan Kawailani Ozawa (YouTube Channel)

Last week I got a little carried away, though.

I decided it would be more visceral to have a 3D interface for beachstrolling.

Here’s an imaginary hut that I hacked together on Waikiki Beach.

Just click the doorway to take a beachstroll.

If you can’t see it, or it isn’t working, you can also see it directly on Kuula.

Now that’s a break from winter in New England!

One problem, though.

I love to beachstroll on South Beach, too.

Here’s a 360° video from YouTube for doing that.

Watch the video below in 360° on YouTube here!

vr360videos (YouTube Channel)

There’s just one door in my tiny beach hut.

What to do?

Make a beach shack with more doors, of course!

If you can’t see it, or it isn’t working, you can also see it directly on Kuula.

I was happy with my new digs for a few days.

Then I happened to be updating all of the country pages on Cosma, and I came across a bevy of 360° YouTube videos showing awesome beaches in Australia. Here are a few of them.

Sydney Bondi Beach (SouthernCross VR, YouTube 360° Video)
Great Ocean Road, Victoria, Australia (Tourism Australia, YouTube 360° Video
Bells Beach Drone Interactive Flight. (Spin 360-3D, YouTube 360° Video)

That beach shack got an(other) upgrade!

Welcome to my Enchanted Beach House!

If you can’t see it, or it isn’t working, you can also see it directly on Kuula.

If you get bored with my set list and want to go somewhere else, here is how to do it.

Start by picking a beach. It can be one you’ve been to yourself, or any other one.

You can find plenty of great U.S. beaches on Stephen Leatherman’s Dr. Beach website. If you’re feeling more adventuresome, then you can take your pick from the best beaches in the world using CNN Travel’s Worlds Best Beaches website. They have an Interactive Map to help you find a great beach for “beachstrolling.”

Once you know where you want to go, then go to YouTube and put in the name of the beach followed by “360°.” Voilà, you will probably have plenty of gist for beachstrolling.

So a few things happened during my adventures in beachstrolling this week.

One of those things is that I got inspired to add a new category of links called “Fun in the Sun” to the country pages on Cosma.

In addition, I was listening to the radio and heard these lyrics to the song A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman.

There’s a house we can build
Every room inside is filled
With things from far away
The special things I compile
Each one there to make you smile
On a rainy day
— Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

Now that was food for thought, and look what happened after that …

Welcome to Wanderlust Magic Travel Villa!!!


You can also explore it on Kuula.

Happy beachstrolling … and other travels 😉

Find out more about beaches, travel and the World…

Americas Canada, United States, Mexico, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Chile, Argentina
Europe United Kingdom, Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece
Africa Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, Madagascar
Asia India, China, Japan
Oceania Australia, New Zealand
Polar Regions Arctic, Antarctica

Sand Art

~ mehopper

The last few weeks have been an odd mix of work and play for me.

On the one hand, I’ve been hard at work on a project that I’ll share here in the near future.

On the other hand, I’ve also been somewhat obsessed with sand sculptures.

This is because one of my favorite ways to take a break is to go for a walk on my nearest beach, and that happens to be a place called Revere Beach.

Here are some links to where you can find out about why Revere Beach is special.
How Revere Beach Became America’s First Public Beach (Edgar B. Herwick III, WGBH)
Boston’s Revere Beach: The Complete Guide (Kathryn Cirrone, Trip Savvy)

The beach is actually fairly deserted most of the time — there’s often just myself and a handful of other “beach people” walking or just soaking up some sun.

Here’s a 360° picture that I took which shows what it usually looks like there.

However, things got a lot busier the second half of July because the annual Revere Beach International Sand Sculpting Festival ran from July 26th to July 28th, but the setup and sand delivery actually started happening a week before.

Of course, it’s fun to watch the festivities, and it’s almost impossible to refrain from taking snapshots when something like this happens on your home turf.

Here’s a short slide show of some shots that I took of the festival.

Here are my pictures of my favorite sculptures. Click the gallery for a slide show.

Normally I would have stopped there, but then I got an idea for a project stuck in my head that then took on a life of its own.

You see, as much as I love watching the festival unfold, it also strikes me as bittersweet. It is at the height of summer when preparations start in mid-July, but then the sculptures stay on display for weeks and slowly melt until bulldozers come and wipe them away in mid-August.

To me, the sculptures serve as sort of a metaphor for the short, sweet existence of summer. When they are being built and displayed, summer is in its full glory. Then the crowds leave, the sculptures deteriorate, and by the time they are gone, summer is almost gone too. Schools are starting, Halloween decorations are in stores, and the only thing anyone talks about is Fall.

So, I became obsessed with instantiating this perspective in time-lapses of the sculptures.

For example, here’s a slideshow with photos that I took to create a time-lapse of this year’s Center Sculpture showing its full life cycle from before it was born until it’s demise.


 
Here are time-lapses of just some of my other favorite sculptures.

 
There are some more time-lapse videos like these on a longer version of this post that I did for my personal blog From Sand to Sand.

Now, if you’re like me, you think of all of this as being about sandcastles, even though there were no “real” sandcastles this year — the closest thing was the sculpture of Notre Dame.

I admit to being just a tad disappointed that no one decided to build a sandcastle of some sort, even though it probably would have been judged as trite if they did.

That’s why I felt a bit of joy when further down the beach I saw a gentleman building a small, honest-to-goodness sandcastle.

It turns out that he was doing it to promote a cute little product called Create A Castle. Here’s a video about their kit, and there a number of others on their YouTube Channel.

TTPM Toy Reviews (YouTube Channel)
TTPM Toy Reviews (Official Website)

While I was poking around for information about Create a Castle and other related resources for this project, it really dawned on me that building things with sand, or sand art and play as Wikipedia calls it, has evolved from a child’s activity into an industry.

For example, a gentleman named Andy Hancock offers Sandcastle Building Lessons on South Padre Island in Texas. He has posted a whole YouTube Playlist.

Then, of course, Revere Beach isn’t the only place that hosts sand festivals and competitions — there are a ton of them around the country and the world.

The 10 Best Sandcastle Competitions in America (Kim Windyka Kim Windyka, Fodors)

Fun stuff!

Now that I’ve gotten documenting and sharing the demise of sand structures, I need to get back to work on that project that I’m preparing to release soon.

That doesn’t mean that I won’t be taking a few breaks to visit the beach, though.

Here’s the thing. Summer doesn’t officially end until the Autumnal Equinox on September 23rd. It may be on the wane, but there are still weeks left. Don’t let it go before its time. There is still plenty of time to enjoy some good old traditional warm weather activities like cookouts and visits to the beach.

I intend to do that, and I hope you will too 🙂

Happy Summer, Still!

Find out more about Sandcastles and Beaches …

Gone Beaching!

~ mehopper

It’s high summer here in North America, and it’s also the time for “official” national holidays, so a lot of people are hanging up their proverbial gone fishing signs.

However, I tend to be more the type to hang up a gone beaching sign.

Since I live in the Boston area, and I’m also a North Shore type, that means that when I’m feeling lazy, I grab the Blue Line (featured in the movie Next Stop Wonderland) and head up to Revere Beach that’s known for being “the first public beach” in the country.

In case you’ve never been, here’s a 360° image I took there with my handy dandy Ricoh Theta S 360° Camera — if you click and look around, you’ll see the iconic Kelly’s Roast Beef.

Here’s a another 360° image that I took with a better view of the beach.

Revere is fun to cruise the first day of Spring, or if you’re into world class sand sculptures.

However, the truth be known, I’m more of a “further up” the North Shore type.

My favorite thing to do is to head up to Nahant Beach.

Here’s a 360° picture that shows where I walk from Nahant Beach to King’s Beach.

Here’s another 360° snap of my favorite place to soak up some sun.

So I hope that this has inspired you to find your inner beach bum, as well as find the best sea, sand and sun near you so that you can kick back, relax and experience some real sand between your toes too 🙂

Find out more about beaches …