To someone like me who grew up firmly landlocked in the Midwest, the sea is still mysterious and kind of unreal. Nighttime on the beach is an amazing thing: so dark (the island we stayed on has a "lights out for turtles" rule, to protect hatching sea turtles as they make their way to the sea guided by the moonlight) and so quiet, except for the chorus of frogs that sang in the wet dunes.
I hear you; I grew up on the prairies, in Manitoba, so I'm more used to the dark forever you get when you combine night with wide-open fields. (when it's cloudy and ultradark it's disorienting enough but when you get the stars and the northern lights thrown in in all directions, it feels like you're falling off the planet, you can see so far.)
Anyhow, when we went to Rhode Island a few years back we ended up at the beach at night--thankfully our hotel overlooked the ocean--and of course photos were taken (that's the moon there, not the sun, which had gone down hours before):
http://www.globalhermit.com/travelogue/rhodeisland/moonlit-beach.jpg
http://www.globalhermit.com/travelogue/rhodeisland/sean-eileen-moonlight.jpg
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September 20, 2004 11:08 PM