Assateague in July

Saturday July 15th

"You're going to Assateague in July? That's insane. No one goes to Assateague in the summer, the bugs are bad during the summer months." -everyone

If you've never been to an inner-coastal back bay along the east coast in the summer, you might not be familiar with the biting flies known as greenheads. They can grow to be about an inch long with fangs the size of a grizzly bear. They don't sting or bite so much as CHOMP flesh off of your body and leave welts about 3 inches in diameter bleeding from the center. Any part of your body that isn't below water is vulnerable to attack. They especially love human flesh tenderized with DEET bug repellant. The strawberry flies are a smaller breed of biting fly, but what the lack in size they make up for in aggression. These relentless biters are the angriest little f'ers you'll ever encounter in nature. They take a personal vendetta against you for whatever reason in their demented little bug mind. They dive bomb you from heights of up to 20 feet and take acute interest in your nostrils and ears. Their bites aren't bad, but their attacks will drive you over the edge, sometimes you'll find yourself running to try to get away, and you can run, but you can't hide. And of course, the back bays always harbor their more reknowned native pest, the mosquito. The buzzing in your ear late at night and itching bites you might be able to ignore, and at least some bug repellant has an effect on these annoyances. Which brings me to my next point. The new Cutter Advanced doesn't work. After many years of exposing my skin to the legions of the insect armies, I have found that OFF Deep Woods works the best. Assateague included. Yes, even Assateague in July.

But this story doesn't revolve around those biting insects that drive so many from the beaches of Assateague in the summer months. For this past weekend, my friends, we were blessed by the bug gods and they called off the attacks. Maybe it was because we were oceanside, instead of bayside. Or we had effective bug repellant. Or the breeze was just strong enough. Whatever the combination of forces that joined, we had the most beautiful night of beach camping I've ever had.

When I arrived Saturday at lunchtime, I met our fearless leader Eddie. He had arrived early Friday to reserve our group the best of the 5 groups sites at Assateague. Eddie has the most luxurious camp setup I've ever seen. His fully inflated matress is 2 feet tall and the size of a queen bed. It was beautiful. I felt the pangs of jealousy as soon as I saw it. Ellen and I drooled a little bit and then quickly stuffed our Z-rests into our tents before someone saw our version of a "mattress".

After setting up my tent I sat down to have a beer and meet the rest of our group. While we were sitting there, the group site next to us was infiltrated by a lone stallion. He was hungry and they had left their food unattended on the picnic tables. Our stallion friend, let's call him Shittail, ate most of the food left out on the table, including a brilliant performance in opening a bag of Lays Potato chips. The next hour he stood still between our sites and then he layed down. He wasn't feeling well. He wandered over to our site and had a bout of explosive diarhea next to our grill. Luckily, nothing was tainted except the sand. It was warm and humid and a thunderstorm was rolling in. It rained for about a half an hour and during that time, Rashad and I went swimming. The ocean was empty, because everyone got out when it started lightning. But we were swimming off the beach about 20 yards, talking about the shark sighting that Jeff had reported from the day before. As we talked about first aid for shark bites, I saw a fin in the water about 10 yards away from us to the north, and behind us, closer to the beach. I told Rashod about it and he laughed and told me to quit playin. As I'm paddling and running for the beach, I pointed out the fin to him, and he beat me out of the water. We both stood on shore and watched the shark in the breakers, about 4 or 5 feet long, swimming parallel to the beach in the rain. HOLY SHIT! I'm sure he wouldn't have bitten us. Right? Anyway, I wasn't going back out until there were more people in the water. Then the chances of someone else getting bit would cut my risk some.



After the rain stopped, we played some horseshoes. Jerry and I beat Mike and Lee in the first round, then in the winners bracket, we barely lost to Jeff and Timmy. It was a good run.
Mike and Tim cooked up some good vittles. Then we all went swimming. Mike and gang must have brought the wood from 6 mature trees, 3 pickup trucks worth of firewood to the beach. Our fire could be seen by ships 27 nautical miles out to sea. The radios were giving us a little bit of trouble. Next time I'll have to bring my jukebox and some CDs or something. The tide was coming in and about 2am, we had to build a barrier to protect our fire from the ocean. We roasted some dogs and drank some beers and relaxed into the night. The moon was bright and the stars were out. No bugs especially on the beach side of the sand dunes because the breeze was wonderful. Sunday morning was warm and breezy. It would have been another beautiful day at the beach, but alas, I had to get home to my girls. Tomorrow I go back to work after being off for 2 full weeks. I'm sad, but I feel good. I had a blast, I relaxed alot, I caught up on sleep. It was a great vacation. Assateague was totally awesome and we'll be back the weekend of August 5th to do it again. Anyone who says Assateague sucks in the summertime - "That's horseshit."