We enjoy camping. We enjoy the beach. We live on an island, so camping-at-the-beach seems like a no-brainer. The only problem is that we really like camping with Luna the Big Dog™, and most all the beach camping areas we’ve found say “No Animals.” It is true that this restriction seems to be honored mostly in the breach… we’ve even had park personnel come up to us saying “what a beautiful dog, may I pet her?” There are many dogs at most of the parks, and I have never seen any authority figures chastise anyone for bringing their pup. Still, I’m always uncomfortable breaking rules, which I tend to assume have good reasons behind them.
Recently, though, we found a beach on private property but with statutory access rights to island residents. We left the compound last Friday morning at 07:30 and took Luna there. They don’t restrict access for pets. It takes a little walking (half a mile?) to get there, and it was early on a weekday, so as you can see it wasn’t crowded. At all.
The surf was minimal. Luna is shy of surf, so this was actually her first time swimming in the ocean.
There’s no camping on the beach, but there is camping nearby so I expect we’ll be back soon.
—2p