I've said it before and I'll say it till the day I'm buried in the sand or sucked out to sea: I come alive at the beach. Childhood summers were spent a couple/three hours northeast of here, on shores similar yet different. But the bottom line is it's all one ocean, and any time I'm immersed in it I'm jazzed with a feeling of cosmic unity, completely at peace. And more than metaphysical delight, it's a fun place for photography. People get weird at the beach, and as it's a tourist destination, no one looks askance at someone taking pictures. It was a long pale winter, so I fully expected and received an absurd hazy day sunburn, torso and feet seared in blotchy pink patches, but it was a small price to pay for a day of dissolving into salt air and sea. Sarah's Philly art buddy Daniel Tucker drove out for a morning chat on the beach and I drifted from shore to bungalow like a bit of flotsam, insignificant, content, wholly of itself. Brigantine is named for local wrecked ships of a type favored by pirates, and true to its etymological roots it's replete with signs of rapacity, from kitschy AirBnB slaughter decor to grotesque displays of concentrated wealth... but this too shall pass, a whelming tide to wipe the slate clean.