MELMERBY BEACH – The air at Melmerby Beach feels cool and the choppy waters of the Northumberland Strait sends waves crashing onto the shore.
“It’s nineteen degrees (in the water),” says Ryan Allen, as he sits atop one of the lifeguard stands at the popular Pictou County summer-time destination.
To the uninitiated, the waves might appear ominous, but not to veteran lifeguards.
“This is pretty calm, we don’t really consider this surf,” says lifeguard Victoria Disney, referring to the waves breaking on the sand.
A few people splash around near the shore, some young children are digging in the sand as sun-bathers catch some rays, lying in the sand or sitting on beach chairs. Far off in the distance, several hundred yards down the beach, another cluster of people have gathered for, perhaps, one last day in the sun.
It’s the final day of August, and even if the calendar says we still have a couple of more weeks before autumn arrives, the Labour Day weekend is upon us and kids are heading back to school in a few days.
On Sept. 2, the lifeguards would be packing up for good, their last day on the job in 2019.
It won’t be autumn until Sept. 23, but it feels like summer is close to being over.
“It’s the end of the year, Labour Day,” says Tyler Green, a resident of Stellarton who is in his third summer as a lifeguard at the Merb.
“From here on out, it gets colder, and darker quicker.
“And we’re sad,” he adds with a smile. “Summer’s at its end.”
TROUBLED WATERS
The Strait can be unforgiving.
A few years ago, a woman and her daughter who were visiting from outside Pictou County made a fateful late-summer trip to the Merb, on the first weekend that no lifeguards were posted at the beach.
The daughter got into some trouble while swimming, and while the mother was able to rescue the girl, she could not save herself, and drowned in a riptide not far from shore.
A large sign greets people arriving at the beach, a part of which shows people what to do when they encounter a riptide (swim parallel to the shore until you find a calmer area of the water).
“Don’t try to fight against it, because you won’t win,” says Disney, who also suggests that a person should never swim alone, and to “know your limits as a swimmer, how strong you are. If you know you’re not a strong swimmer, don’t go out far for a swim, just stay close to the shore.”
Disney is from the Netherlands, but her father was born in Nova Scotia and she has grandparents who live in Little Harbour. She takes a quick glance around the beach, and out at the water.
“School starts next week,” she says. “And people are having their last beach day.”
