Me, Jenni and our nephew Brandon went to the beach today. We went to the Virginia Beach Oceanfront at around 35th Street. My nephew and I were in the water attempting to catch some waves on our body boards. Quite a ways out I catch a glimpse of black body board that just seemed to get away from someone. After a couple more waves passed I noticed someone out attempting to swim and catch the body board, but he didn't seem to be doing a very good job of it. He then started to struggle and dip under the water at times. I turned to my nephew and said "I think someone is having a hard time out there." I then looked to the shore and saw the lifeguard jump out of her stand and start running towards the water. I looked back toward the struggling swimmer who was appearing to be in more trouble, then I looked back to the lifeguard and she seemed to be fighting the waves and was not going to get out very quickly.
My first thought was that I did not want to get in the way of the lifeguards. But then I thought that I was so much closer then the lifeguard was and I had a board with me. So I swam out to him. The lifeguard from the next stand over was much faster getting off his stand and swimming to the victim. So he got there the same time that I did. Just as we got there the swimmer went under. We pulled him up and I offered my board to be used. Me and the lifeguard pulled the swimmer up on my board. The female life guard finally got there and we started to swim him back to shore. I offered to undo my wrist leash and get out of there way. That is when they informed me....
this was a mock rescue.
I felt like such an ass.
In my defense. Even the lifeguards did not know it wasn't real until we were nearly at the shore when one of them recognized the "victim" as another lifeguard. I guess they do this at times to test their skills.
After that excitement, six military speed boats sped by. They looked pretty cool.
After a few more minutes I told my nephew I was going to shore. On the way to the shore I looked down the beach and noticed some smoke coming from the roof of the Hilton. The smoke quickly blackened and thickened. There was no question that there was a fire. After just a minute or so the smoke turned white. I assumed that the suppression system kicked in. We later found that the range hood at Catch 31 caught fire and was put out by the automatic suppression system.
Definitely not a boring day at the beach.
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