A few weeks ago, my family went on a spontaneous 7-hour road trip to eat lobster rolls and swim in the ocean at Cape Cod.
And look at what we found at one of the beaches there:
This super-discreet beauty is a floatable, waterproof beach wheelchair. Its “wide rubber tires absorb the shock and discomfort caused by rugged terrain, and provide mobility through sand and other rough surfaces,” while “the armrests and wheels are comprised of floatation materials that enable balance while in the water.”
They had a bunch of them at the beach entrance – all I had to do was trade them my ID and it was mine for the day!
Was it comfortable? The ever-lasting bruises on my arms say Nope!
Was it easy to maneuver? I weigh as much as a small child, and my USMC husband still struggled with pulling that contraption through sand, so Nope!
Did everyone stare? Well of course! Wouldn’t you?
BUT I got to play in the ocean with my toddler, so I’m going to call it a win.
Really, the negativities could keep piling up and I would STILL brag about the experience and recommend it to absolutely everyone. I’m pretty good at just laying on the beach all day and reading a book, but this was FUN.
I mean, I could get all deep and sentimental by throwing in some life lessons and themes – “take advantage of small opportunities…” “making memories is more important than worrying about strangers’ opinions…” “using an accessibility tool does not make you a burden…”
But, really, when it comes down to it, I just wanted to show other people with Ataxia that this thing exists!
We were at Mayflower Beach in Denis, Cape Cod. And, yeah, accessible beaches are hard to come by, but at least Mobi-Mats are becoming more popular (thanks, stroller-pushing-parents!) so we’re getting there.
You see, Ataxia stops us from doing a whole lot of things. It’s pretty cool that this doesn’t have to be one of them.
So cool! I’ve never seen one reclined like this. In most beach towns – especially down south, you can rent ocean wheelchairs that float and are waterproof but they are more upright like a regular wheelchair. We vacationed every year with my extended family to Outer Banks and every year we’d rent one for my aunt who has MD so she’d be able to go in the water with us whenever she wanted. I just grew up with them so I figured it was something most people knew about – I’m glad you’ve written this to bring more education to people!!
Maybe we could get a list of wheelchair accessible beaches.