two from the inlet…
diptych from the boca inlet. august 23, 2024.
often I find myself at the boca inlet. during my short stint in college, I would end up at this park to either skip class, smoke weed or surf. sometimes all those things at the same time. it’s funny because the park has only a small amount of parking spots, so it seems to stay somewhat empty. most of the time it is the local beachgoers, fisherman or surfers.
when I moved away, I stopped visiting this beach as much. when visiting home, I wouldn’t necessarily run to the beach. mostly quick family visits, than back on a plane out west as fast as I could. california beaches were better is what I would tell myself.
now that I find myself here more, I have noticed this park is not quite the same as my memory serves. the visitors, the fisherman and the surfers are basically the same, but it seems like in order to maintain the inlet for more boat traffic, the dredging is slowly turning this little beach into a garbage can.
now, I am very ignorant to the procedures of dredging and the affect it has on the ecosystem, but I can still see how littered the beach is. if you swim in the water with goggles, you feel as if your constantly being tickled no longer by small fish, but by small plastic shrapnel. you can’t see past your fingertips most of the time due to the shredded strips of plastic bags or the plastic bottle caps hovering.
this place, which has always brought me peace and supplied such euphoric times, now makes me feel dirty and like there needs to be more done. maybe i’ll stop procrastinating the idea of getting out there and volunteering for a beach cleanup… or maybe I will keep swimming in this shit water but from now on, I will do so with a camera to show how bad this has become.
the last time I was at the inlet, I shot these two photographs. they seem to feel like the only beauty left at this place.
looking west into the sea grapes. august 23, 2024.
looking west towards the boca resort. august 23, 2024.
