We discovered our first full day and night in Boracay that during the day, it’s generally low tide and the waters are calm and serene. At night, though, high tide arrives, and the waves can come all the way to the steps of businesses (that is REALLY far if you knew how little the current was during the day!). As with most islands, typhoon alerts are very much a real thing to be cognizant of and concerned about.

Yesterday early evening, Chris was having a massage while Kaia and I played in the water and built sand castles at White Beach. But given we’re so close to the equator, the sun set relatively early, so people started leaving the beach. We eventually left the beach and spent some time walking on the streets to find a restaurant. The place I originally chose had a wait, so we had to find somewhere else. I ended up choosing a restaurant to meet Chris at that would be most convenient if accessed by going to the beach first. What I wasn’t prepared for, especially in the dark, was how far in the tide would be. Luckily Kaia and I both were wearing waterproof sandals, so we were able to walk through the shallow waves easily. But I did feel a little uneasy, wondering if one of her sandals would just disappear with the force of a wave. We met Chris at the restaurant and had a quick dinner.

But after dinner, there was no escaping going back into the water in the dark. There wasn’t a way for us to get back to the hotel via the street; none of the businesses would let us go through their businesses to get to the street (okay, so maybe not everyone here is hospitable). So we had no choice but to walk at the edge of the waves to get back. This time, Chris held Kaia’s hand and walked through the waves. And a few minutes in, Kaia yelled out that she didn’t have a sandal on anymore. We turned on our phone flashlights and tried to see if a wave would bring her sandal back in, but to no avail; the waves had swept away her sandal forever! She ended up having to walk barefoot on one foot for the distance back to the hotel. It wasn’t a long distance, but it was still very annoying. And we were obviously very unhappy to be that family who had their kid lose a single shoe! I was even more mad about this because I just gifted her these sandals right before this trip, and so she’d only been wearing them for a few weeks. I cannot even count the number of times I’ve seen a single flip flop, a single sandal, a single shoe, lying around on the streets of New York, in playgrounds, parks, and at beaches. Each time I see these, I’ve given a sad look at what was lost that I could see, but its rightful owner would unlikely ever see again.

Now, we had to get her new sandal replacements for this trip while here so that she could continue to enjoy what limited time we still had at the beach. We really liked these sandals a lot, and they matched with everything she wore. I felt guilty for not securing the strap more tightly before we left the restaurant (I always tried to strap it on tighter, but she’d yell and say she didn’t like it, and eventually loosen it).

When we got back to the hotel and cleaned up, she gave me this long, glum look and said, “The beach took my sandal away.”

And that’s the story of how White Beach took my baby’s sandal away.