Exploring Oshawa: June 2009

I can count on one hand the number of times I have traveled south of Bloor Street so it seems appropriate that I start my adventuring at the very bottom of the City. It turns out that there is something down there, something that involves sand, water, and people using the sand and water in creative ways.

In other words, Oshawa has a beach.

I was not really aware that a beach existed. I knew there was a park down at the waterfront but an actual beach surprised me.

Not only do we have a beach, we have a fairly large beach.

After thinking about it, the existence of a beach should not have been all that surprising given that the city runs all the way down to Lake Ontario. But we don't just have a beach, we have a supervised beach.

Now according to the Internet this only occurs for the months of July and August but who wants to swim before that?

Want another shocker? How about this:

Not only can you swim, you can board sail. I have no idea what that means but I find it really neat that it is not only allowed but encouraged.

Why am I so surprised by all of this? When was the last time you went swimming in Lake Ontario or any lake for that matter? Normally beaches are off limits for swimming so the fact that care is being taken for the beach is something different than what I'm used to seeing. Now a quick check will say that, yes, the beach was closed to swimming for most of last summer (2008). However I remember it was raining every third day last year which results in run-off which results in no swimming bans. Other years show it to be open more often than not.

But enough about swimming. There are places to sit. Some of them are quite quaint.