I told myself it it got up over sixty degrees, I’d go swimming.

Well, not swimming, but, you know, I’d go in the water. Yes, all the way in.

Friday, which was February 24th, it got up over sixty.

I’m not going to lie to you and say the water was particularly warm, but the tide was low and the beach was empty. There were a half dozen seagulls divebombing the sandbar, cracking open scallops and clams and feasting on the creatures inside.

Strange, that a creature that spends its life on the ocean floor, has one moment where it is suspended high above the beach. If those scallops opened their shells, they’d get one last peek with their hundreds of blue eyes at the sea below before they tumbled down.

I thought there would be at least a few people on the beach, taking advantage of this unbelievable day. But school vacation started this past Friday, and the island is more empty than usual. Almost everyone goes away, either someplace warm like Florida or St. Croix or Jamaica, or in search of good skiing in Vermont or New Hampshire.

A few of us stay behind, to walk the dogs that have been left at home.

The water was cold, real cold, and the tide so low I had to walk far out to where the water was deep enough to sink down into.

I wonder if a day this warm in February will stand out in my memory as the years go by, or if it is just the first in an endless summer.