Strangeness of Beach Life

Are you one of those people who dream of living near the beach? Is this close to your mental picture: your hair being gentle caressed by the wind, palm trees gently swaying, your soul being soothed by the gentle sound of waves? I don't know how to break this to you, but I'm here to give you a reality check. Here in my beach area, you are not soothed by the gentle sounds of waves but awakened by the loud, bass-y sound of cargo ship engines! Have you ever heard a cargo ship's engines? You may actually feel them before you hear them. You can feel the deep bass in your chest. Then you hear the deep thud, thud, thud of them. It is a really weird thing to wake up to. We have a ship that likes to go by my house at 2:00am. Joy. I live about 300 feet from the water and the ships go through a channel that is about another 300 feet out in the inlet and this still wakes me up. This wasn't mentioned in the brochure! Here is the ship which delivers happy little VWs to our local port:

If you are wondering what I do when a large ship wakes me up at 2 o'clock in the morning, I knit, of course!