Does the ocean feel flipped when you’re at a Pacific beach?

36 comments

1. I need another glass of wine to engage with this post

2. The ocean always feels wet to me.

3. This is one of those questions that comes across so dumb that you may actually be on to something. You know I really don’t know how to even answer this one and my curiosity has been piqued.

4. It always feels like it’s on the front to me.

   But yes if you walk ‘north’ along the coast it’ll be ‘flipped’ as opposed to you walking north on east coast when it’ll be on the right.

5. Haha I’ve never thought of this growing up on the east coast and now living on the west coast. You may have given me motivation to go to the beach and then go home this summer. Atleast the sunrise and sunset must be noticeably different

6. Do you only ever stand facing north?

7. Yes. Having grown up on the Atlantic, the Pacific feels wrong.

8. As someone who grew up mostly on the West coast and moved to the Eastern Seaboard, I found it deeply disorienting to watch the sun rise out of the Atlantic ocean and set in the hills, in the opposite direction from the ocean.

   To a person accustomed to a lifetime of watching the sun rise over the foothills in the East and gently arc toward the West during the day, finally setting into the Pacific ocean, having the environment flip like that felt existentially weird. It never stopped feeling uncanny to me.

9. I know what you mean. Whenever I visualize the ocean in my mind, it’s always on the left.

10. I’ve spent plenty of tome on the beach at Wakiki. I never really felt upside down there.

11. Don’t tell OP about south, guys

12. Whatever you do, don’t go to Hawaii.

13. Yes. I always orient myself to face north as if I am a compass, and thus my local San Diego beaches are always to my left.

14. You just have to stand on a small peninsula that sticks out, and you can have ocean on your right without having to do something crazy like turn to face south,

15. Provincetown feels flipped to me because the shoreline downtown faces southeast, but without looking at the details on a map, you expect the last part of Cape Cod to be facing north.

    Growing up in NYC, the beaches were on the south shore, so that would be the same as any other south facing shore on either the Atlantic or Pacific.

    But for the major coastal beaches, it’s just the direction of the sun.

16. Da fuq?

17. Yes

18. The sun sets over the ocean – if it set behind me while looking at the water that would be wrong.

19. I live in florida. The ocean is on both sides and the bottom as well.

20. Bruh lemme get a hit off that shit

21. I live on the gulf coast of florida and I understand this

22. I grew up in the Midwest but live in the Pacific Northwest now. When I traveled to the Atlantic Ocean the water definitely felt like it was on the right, and on the Pacific Coast it really does feel left. Also, I was recently in San Juan, PR, and the water actually felt like it was up.

23. Huh. I’ve never really thought of it. Perhaps because I’ve been on enough beaches facing in nearly every direction that no particular direction feels “right.”

24. I grew up in southeast Wisconsin in range of Chicago and its suburbs and my grandparents lived in DC/VA and cousins in NC. I’ve lived in central Illinois for over a decade now (endless corn).

    Two years ago I visited the West Coast for the first time in Seattle and other parts of Washington and it was constantly throwing me off that “the big water” was “west” whether it was Puget Sound or the Pacific.

    That made me realize what I’ve associated together is: Heading east = going toward big water (Lake Michigan or Atlantic) = land gradually going down going east toward water = the big interior of land is west, behind you

    So then being on the road and navigating around Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula, the mountains are on one side (big interior) and water is on the other, I was constantly mixing up east and west.

    I’ve visited Nevada and California a few times since then (Sacramento, Tahoe, Reno, and the Sierras) and it hasn’t been too much of an issue there. There you have the big interior behind you (Sierras) as you face west but I wasn’t getting a sense between Tahoe and Sacramento of being near a coast. I made it to Napa and still wasn’t getting the sense of a coast being near.

    I haven’t been to the Pacific coast in California yet. When I make it there I’ll let you know if that messes me up.

25. You know what I am starting to agree that weed these days is TOO strong, I may need to find some shitt high-school shake

26. I always think of the beaches. The east is a depositional coast line depositing sand on beaches. The west is an errosional coast line therefore the beaches are not as deep. But I haven’t been to thr east coast to expect their beaches.

27. Wut?

28. If you smoke some cali weed it’ll flip back

29. Probably, when you’re generally driving north.

30. I grew up on the Southern shore of Lake Erie, so water is conceptually to the North for me.

31. I’ve finally been able to go in the ocean on both coasts but I never got that feeling. I did get this feeling of uneasiness because there wasn’t going to be anything in front of me for thousands of miles

32. Sounds like you need to move out of the small town that youre from

33. Lol no. Unless you’re traveling north to visit the beach it can also be on your left.

34. Wait until OP finds out about the gulf coast.

35. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…..having been to both coasts, if you want to know what it’s like, go to the Atlantic coast, then turn to face south.

    If you want to talk about actual differences, the Pacific is generally colder.

36. The ocean isn’t left, it’s right in front of you. Duh