There's no better way to beat the heat on your next beach vacation than to hold on for dear life while being blown around by the power of a jet engine. Read the rest

Using the "world's smallest HD drone," Robert McIntosh filmed Muscle-Up, a short that flies (seemingly) effortlessly over and around Southern California's famous Muscle Beach first thing in the morning. Impressively, it was all shot in one take.

At the Los Angeles Drone Film Festival in December, his short won in two categories: Made in LA and Best in Show. According to a friend of his, McIntosh received a a $23,000 drone for the prize.

To stabilize the raw footage, which as you'll see below wasn't all that smooth, he used ReelSteady for Adobe After Effects. Read the rest

A Connecticut man who screamed "You will never ever, ever, stop me, my Christianity", thumped his chest, and menaced an Arab family on a Texas beach, was charged with public intoxication earlier this week, reports Fox News.

This man verbally attacked an Arab family and yelled ‘Donald Trump will stop you’ pic.twitter.com/m8vrV3RS3S

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) May 10, 2017

At one point the man can be heard hollering "Donald Trump will stop you. Donald Trump will stop you!" Before storming away, video shows him grabbing his crotch and yelling something obscene at the family, in front of several children.

The family posted the video to their YouTube account with a description of what took place:

While enjoying our time at the beach during a family reunion, our kids and us had to experience ugliness and aggressiveness in the worse shape and form possible. We were staying at the South Padre Pearl hotel and went to the beach through their private access. My father was approached by two woman who were also enjoying their time. The women asked him to help with talking to a stranger who was harassing them. All my father said to the guy was "please enjoy your time and have fun and let everyone else here enjoy their time." The guy seemed to listen and walked away. He then came back to my father and started throwing racist comments. He was yelling so loud that my uncles and my brother came over from the water to see what was going on.

Until the 18th century, the seashore was not a place most people would go to relax. In ancient times, it was where you might run into a variety of monsters like Scylla and Charybdis. The shore is also where one might encounter pirates, smallpox, or even a wayward Kraken. Then something changed. Sorbonne University historian Alain Corbin explores this unusual history in the book The Lure of the Sea: The Discovery of the Seaside in the Western World, 1750-1840, one of the sources for a fascinating Smithsonian magazine article about "Inventing the Beach":

Around the mid-18th century, according to Corbin, European elites began touting the curative qualities of fresh air, exercise and sea bathing. Especially in Britain, home of the Industrial Revolution, aristocrats and intellectuals became preoccupied with their own health and hygiene. They viewed workers, whose numbers were multiplying in factories and new industrial towns, as strengthened through labor. By comparison, the upper classes seemed fragile and effete: lacking in physical prowess and destined for decline. The notion of the “restorative sea” was born. Physicians prescribed a plunge into chilly waters to invigorate and enliven. The first seaside resort opened on England’s eastern shore in the tiny town of Scarborough near York. Other coastal communities followed, catering to a growing clientele of sea bathers seeking treatment for a number of conditions: melancholy, rickets, leprosy, gout, impotence, tubercular infections, menstrual problems and “hysteria.” In an earlier version of today’s wellness culture, the practice of sea bathing went mainstream...

Tracing this remarkable turnaround, “the irresistible awakening of a collective desire for the shore,” Corbin concludes that by 1840, the beach meant something new to Europeans.

On Saturday, Elinor Dempsey, 54, was surfing Morro Strand State Beach near San Luis Obispo, California when she noticed a great white shark approaching her. Read the rest

On July 4, Zach Hupp, a lifeguard on Carolina Beach, NC, flew a rainbow flag from his post. Hupp says someone immediately complained to another lifeguard, concerned "that they thought because I was flying that flag that I would only rescue gay people," and someone else posted on the town's Facebook page that she "didn't know how to explain this one to the tourists who asked us about it." Read the rest

A very talented kite enthusiast at the Huntington Beach Pier had some fun playing tag with a kid. Read the rest

Last week, Cory posted about Dr. Gary Greenberg's marvelous microscope photography of sand grains. Greenberg literally wrote the book on sand grain microphotography, titled A Grain of Sand: Nature's Secret Wonder. Above, is a beautiful video promo for the 2008 book. Read the rest

Sunbathers on Russia's Baltic Coast were surprised by massive hovercraft landing on the beach. According to BBC News, Russian authorities said this was part of a "routine training exercise." Read the rest

In Virginia, rising sea levels are threatening Chincoteague Wildlife Refuge's ability to provide free parking near the beach for the summer tourists who provide a major source of income in the region. Here's a hell of a quote: "Zones that used to be parking areas in the 1990s are now underwater." Also threatened: The beach itself. Read more Daily Climate. (Via Brendon Slotterback) Read the rest