Guam 2020: Post 28 - Brook and Patty's Beach and the Lost Sunglasses

The first time Rob and I came to Guam with our kids, back in 2013, Brook and Patty showed us one of their favorite beaches on the south end of Guam.

It isn't on any map. You can only know you are there by certain guard rail and colvert.

You walk just a little ways and find yourself in a quiet bay, inside the reef, all by yourself.

It seems that the tide was coming in, and it was still the weekend of the very high tides, right after the full moon. Things were fine when we arrived. Rob set our chairs up in the shade, out on the sandy beach. I could tell the tide had been high, but I figured that was earlier in the day. I started looking around for shells, and Rob sat down to relax. All of a sudden, a sneaker wave came up higher than ever before. Rob was suddenly sitting in several inches of water, and my backpack that was beside the chair was starting to float. Rob lifted his leather shoes so they didn't get wet, and I grabbed my bag and started pulling things out, hoping they weren't wet. The most important things were in zip lock bags, so they were still dry. Everything else was wet.

As the wave receeded Rob decided it was time to move up to safer ground. Our chairs now sat up in the ironwood needles.

We sat down again to relax and watch the hermit crabs that had been washed up into the edge of the pile of debris start scurrying around again.

We walked around the corner and found more beach, with little clusters of islands in the water.

This is my favorite beach now too.

What I didn't realize was that while we were packing up to leave that I dropped my sunglasses here.
I didn't discover they were missing until we were getting ready to leave the next beach we drove to, and I wanted to put my sunglasses on to drive into the sun. We searched that beach carefully, but they weren't there. I was ready to give up, because with the high tide they were probably already on their way to the Philippines. But Rob persuaded me to drive back to Brook and Patty's Beach. Turns out it was a lot closer than I thought it was. We walked out to the beach.

And there they were, laying in the debris on the high tide line. I'm so glad one of those big waves didn't come up while we were away and they were safe.

I was so happy to get them back. I didn't want to drive without sunglasses, and I didn't want to have to find new sunglasses that fit while here on Guam.

I really do like this place. I hope I get to go back one more time before we leave.

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