The Scent of Tanning Oil

Photo credit: Surfers at Narragansett Town Beach Howard Lisnoff

The Scent of Tanning Oil

I hadn’t been to a beach in quite a long time. I’m not enamored by freshwater beaches, having been somewhat raised near the ocean in Rhode Island and part of the surfing craze of the 1960s. The surfboard I had was a locally produced “pop out,” which meant that the foam core that gave the board buoyancy was processed with oil opposed to alcohol, which I understood was more expensive, but gave the foam under the fiberglass a cleaner appearance. The old boards were also heavy, and lugging them from my high-school friend’s car less than 100 yards to the ocean at Narragansett Town Beach in Rhode Island was an acceptable burden for the rewards that a day at the beach would provide.

Paul and I surfed other venues in Rhode Island, and one in particular, K-39, just to the right of the Coast Guard station and lighthouse in Point Judith, still in Narragansett, was a challenge with ancient and massive boulders passing just beneath the skeg of the board. A wipeout at K-39 meant bruises. K-39 is bordered by today’s more popular wave break at Nulman Park, a surfing spot that did not exist in the 60s. Nulman offers good-size waves not hampered by the Harbor of Refuge, a huge stone, human-made edifice that protects nearby Wheeler Beach, then Sand Hill Cove. Beyond the breakwater, about 14-16 miles out to sea is Block Island, a well-known summer tourist haunt.

I recall the several days in 1967 when a late-summer storm stalled off the coasts of North and South Carolina and sent huge roiling waves against the beaches of Rhode Island. Waves well over 20 feet high provided a Hawaiian-like surfing experience to those who dared at the town beach in Narragansett. Not a great swimmer at that point in my life, I drove to Sand Hill Cove where the massive waves were tamed somewhat by the breakwater. All of the waves broke at least 50 to 100 yards from shore, and only the brave among the surfing breed would venture that far out for rides of their lives. A wipeout was an adventure of being rolled on the ocean bottom and that early evening provided just that.

Paul was busy the late afternoon I arrived at Sand Hill Cove. The sun was close to setting as I paddled out into the surf. Waves formed again after hitting the breakwater, a magnificent sight of crashing white water in itself. I caught one wave after a few minutes that was somewhere between 10-15 feet, and the sound of the crashing ocean just off of my shoulder in the wave’s tube was something I have never heard since. It was a magnificent melody of nature’s immense power.

But all of this excitement does not speak to the placid days on the beach, usually the town beach, with the alluring scent of what was probably Coppertone tanning oil. I’m not plugging oils and creams from that era since they gave no protection against the sun, which has a cumulative effect of causing skin damage. The beach ethos was so substantive in those days that sunburns were part of the experience, and their consequences were largely unknown. Coppertone may not have been the oil that gave off the coconut fragrance that became associated with those carefree days, but the association is close enough. I remember the iconic huge billboard with its Coppertone ad showing a young kid with a dog pulling at her swimsuit. That billboard was bordered by the parking lot beside Scarborough State Beach, a beach I’ve only gone to a handful of times. The beach had the reputation for being populated with Rhode Island toughs, and that was not for me and not part of the surfing ethos of those vanished days. But what could be better than an onshore summer breeze under pristine blue skies, or when surfing, offshore breezes keeping the waves up and well formed for just a few seconds longer? Life was great!