Hilton Head Island. Thought we will make a dash for the beach for the weekend. It will be a quick Friday-Monday thing.

Well, turns out the whole world had the exact same idea too!!! The beach resort is filled to the brim. Good news is that most are honoring social distancing. But not so much the mask thingy…

Six years back – almost to the day – we had brought my in laws here. That was the day they saw an ocean up close and personal for the first time, they had told me. I remember that evening, both of them just standing there and gazing into the Atlantic totally mesmerized. My father in law is no more and I do not believe my mother in law can make the journey to the USA one more time.

It was a nice walk with some light breeze. We saw more people looking for crabs with bright lights than we have ever seen before. Probably crab season? Oh! and a wedding too!

One thing I did not realize is that most of the hurricanes we get on the East Coast actually originate from over Sahara and make it westward picking up steam on the Atlantic.

Another thing I had not realized is that dust storms make it to the USA by the same route! This year, there has been a particularly dense and strong one. It crossed the Caribbean last week and came into USA this weekend. As you can see the skies are hazy and the air quality in Hilton Head is fairly bad. Apparently, the dust is going to make its way to some parts of Ohio and Indiana even!

First there were a few dolphins that swam by. And then five sharks came by and drove everybody off the water. The sharks were barely visible. Talking to the life guard, I found out that they take a hint from those birds (brown pelicans?). They usually stay 300 yards away from the shore.

When shark – usually small ones – come near the shore, they drive all the fish towards the shore. The birds follow the fish and come up almost to the shore. We saw something we have never seen before. A boat load of fish – I mean a whole lot of them – were jumping up from the water level and then splashing back again making it look like there was a rainfall happening there. Of course, the birds had a great time scooping them up.

I remember seven years back, we were vacationing here and Natasha ran into some school friends of hers on the beach. In fact, I think they split from us to go dine by themselves and Nikita, Sharmila and myself had a Hibachi dinner that night.

Almost an action replay this time! Nikita ran into Grace from her current class! They had a good time in the ocean (when the sharks were not around) and in the pool (when the sharks strolled by)…

The three of us went to pick up some stuff from the nearby grocery store. There was an ice cream store (Kilwins?) there that is apparently a very famous brand. I know that they are very famous because

(*) First, Nikita told me so!
(*) Second, there was a long queue outside

Never been a big ice cream guy myself. But I guess vacations are about exceptions. We sat on a bench by the roadside enjoying our icecreams!

Went around the island in bicycles. I have not biked in a very long time (30 years)? Nikita took to it very quickly. I had some difficulty in getting the bike to slow down or stop. These rental bikes have no brakes. Took me a few minutes and hobbling down a bridge, desperately trying with my two feet on the ground to slow down to realize that all I had to do is try pedaling in reverse!! Thereafter, it was all smooth sailing.

Next up – motorbiking together?

That was a unique sight. One single tree completely dwarfing the rest of the trees and vegetation nearby. Reminded me immediately of Tagore’s “Taalgaach” poem. Also the head of the tree reminded me of the divi divi trees from Aruba!

Usually I get to a green circle on the outer ring on the left set of dials every night. That means I got my 7-8 hour of sleep. Once in a while, I get a yellow if I do not get enough sleep. And in some rare cases, I get a red – especially in long flights because of the disturbed sleep.

On Friday, I woke up after a good night’s sleep. But was somehow not totally feeling well. After driving to Hilton Head, I slept off in the hotel bed for another long bout resulting in getting nearly twelve hours of sleep for the day.

Felt better after it. Also noticed that the Apple Watch sleep ring had turned bright blue! I had no idea that there was another color for the rings!

Saw it in the parking lot of the hotel.

This goes back a few weeks when Sharmila and I had this debate about distilled water. She had bought distilled water to make coffee at home. We get our water from our well and it can sometimes clog up small appliances because of very small debris.

I was arguing the case that we should not be drinking distilled water. Any water we drink needs to have some amount of minerals etc. Which is why all the cities process the water and add certain elements before it is sent out to the house taps. I also have very severe doubts if the water she bought is truly distilled – that would make the water very costly. It is probably super filtered or something.

Yesterday, when picking up water at the Kroger near our hotel, I noticed “Distilled Water” was the only thing left in the shelves (in the big size container I was looking for). What caught my eye was the marketing twist the label had.

It did state that it is produced by steam distillation. I can’t still fathom the costs of all the energy required to boil the water and then cool it back again after capturing the vapors.

But what made me laugh was mentioning that the source was “Deep Wells”. I suspect to give you a sense of pure and cold water?

My question was – How does it matter? You are distilling the water. The source can be from anywhere in this world – the output will be exactly the same. It is DISTILLED water. It will have no other molecule than H₂O. You can boil dirt water and distill it and get exactly the same product.

But I guess these are the days of marketing. We have seen Smart Water, Vitamin Water … Why else would we pay exorbitant prices for tap water put in a bottle rather than have it from a tap?

With the dust and haziness gone, we got some of the familiar blue hue back…

That goes “You piddly little wave. I am not scared of you” ???

Boogie boarding in the Atlantic…

That land mass on the left in the horizon – that is Daufuskie Island. It is on our list to visit soon…