This was my favorite thing to do after a nice family evening at ████████, where I usually spent some time drawing or running around outside near the tennis court with █████, before indulging in a three-course meal of shrimp in garlic sauce, a steaming dish of cannelloni, and ice cream for dessert. I loved it when mom and dad got slightly tipsy and ignored our usual bedtime in favor of another hour of partying.
I focused on scanning the edge between the warm, anthracite-colored dry sand and the pitch-black wet sand, where seagrass, sticks, plant debris, bird feathers, frayed pieces of rope, and plastic objects of every shape and color formed a meandering line along the beach. I enjoyed finding all kinds of treasures: oddly shaped driftwood or curious objects of unknown origin, always hoping to find a message in a bottle or real pirate loot. The surf here on the west coast of the island was raging loudly and sometimes waves would lap around my feet. I remembered to watch out for the black lumps of washed-up tar that looked like smooth pebbles, because stepping on one barefoot was a nasty surprise.
I clambered up the dune, the hardened surface layer crumbling underfoot and slowly sloughing downhill in cascades of warm desert sand. At the top, I followed a narrow sandy path between patches of sharp black volcanic cinders and dried thorny scrub until I reached my favourite spot right at the edge of the pitch-black lava cliff that contrasted so sharply with the white sand below.