Venice Beach, CA

So today, we decided that we missed the ocean quite a bit since we had spent almost our whole time in Vancouver with the ocean at our doorstep. We called up my mother's friend, and she told us about Venice Beach. So she came over, and we all piled into the car and headed for the beach. I had heard many good things about Venice; it seemed to be one of many tourist attractions of California. Once we got there and sank our bare feet into the warm sand, I could instantly guess why. I had forgotten how vast the ocean was, and it took my breath away even though I had been with it for almost all my life. It was then that I realized that I needed the ocean by me to live the rest of my life. I loved it there so much. The thunderous boom of the waves crashing onto shore was wonderful... Digging my feet into the sand felt so great... I honestly didn't know how I had survived these past two months without even dreaming about going to the ocean...

There were so many beauties there next to the ocean. It was by far the most beautiful part of the ocean that I had ever seen. We saw so many breathtaking things, I was simply squealing with delight.

We gasped when we saw the pelicans flying right next to the waves, diving into the water when it spotted its prey.
After watching the pelicans for a long time, we realized that the beach was filled with small shells, smaller than the size of your fingernail. They were beautifully colored with such variety, so beautiful that they looked like they were manmade. What really amazed me, however, was that they were all alive. Every single one of them were alive and squirming. There were probably millions of those shells in the sand right next to the ocean. I discovered the majority of these shells by accident. I was wading through the shallow waters of the ocean, kicking up sand and making the water cloudy, when I realized that there were tens of thousands of miniature shells underneath the sand. In awe, I kept digging into the sand with my feet, and when there were hundreds of shells over turned, I waited to see if they would move. They did. They started to squirm and burrow back down into the sand; right where my foot was. I could feel them moving around my foot, and that had me laughing in the water for quite a long time.

While I was doing this, my mom suddenly exclaimed and screamed and pointed out in the ocean. She said that she thought she saw a black something slide out of the water and back in, and we got very excited, thinking that she had spotted a seal. (We saw seals all the time in Vancouver, whenever we went out for a walk, you could see their smooth black heads bob out of the water.) We waited and watched for a long time, and then we saw it. The black image... had a fin! They were dolphins! Suddenly, there were so many dolphins in one area, their fins visible above the water, going in and out of the water, putting on quite a show for us; it was so beautiful. I had never seen wild dolphins out in the water before...
We were so amazed at everything we had seen and thought that it couldn't get any better, when of course, it did. We saw these small birds, the size of your palm, squeaking and feeding right where the waves were lapping at the shore. They were, however, very afraid of the water (or maybe they just didn't like getting their snow white feathers wet and dirty) and whenever the wave came in every thirty seconds or so, they would make adorable little squeaking sounds and run away altogether from the wave, and run right back when the wave receded. They ran unbelievably fast; so fast that their legs were a blur and they looked like they were sliding across the sand. They repeated this process over and over again, and we were laughing and squealing at their cuteness and persistence.

Lastly, we saw another flock of birds, also feeding by the shore. They had long, thing beaks that looked like spears, and they dug their beaks into the sand, coming up with the small shells and eating them all. We watched in amazement at these interesting birds until we realized that we should start heading back. We had so much fun.
I loved everything I saw there, and I realized that there were so many beautiful creatures to see.
I really hope that I can return there sometime, and I recommend this beach for all of you; your breath will really be taken away!!!