We are all on the beach at night when they start setting off the ordinance. Who knows where they got a hold of it, but they are far enough off shore that it is hard to see the great plumes of water rising into the air – fifty? a hundred feet? It reads as smoke or clouds, but then there is the roar as the towers of water collapse and seem to walk towards us on the beach like gray giants, lumbering out of the ocean and the dark. It’s marvelous and haunting until they start shooting the ordinance closer and closer into the waves and the towers of water react randomly; seeming to skit around our heads like giant snakes, bursting forth at impossible angles and pouring down and we panic. I dive into the sea and swim over to the harbor police and tell them they have a problem: very well armed lunatics, having way too much fun for a beach party.
