I’ve just returned from vacationing in Maine, where I caught up with some old friends, saw my family, hiked and swam. For the first half of my trip, I was joined by my friends Melissa and Dave, who live in Denver. They had one simple desire: lobster. And when I heard how much a lobster dinner costs in Denver — $46 — I couldn’t blame them. Lobster is my favorite food, followed closely by clams and shrimp, and so it’s not like I needed any arm twisting. One of the first things we did was map out an eating schedule.

We ate lobster rolls for lunch, and steamed lobster for dinner. We stopped at Red’s Eats, a small lobster shack in Wiscasset where the wait — well worth it — is about 45 minutes, and had what might possibly be the best lobster rolls in the history of the world; each roll was stuffed with more than one lobster, and served with a small cup of melted butter, poured from an old kettle. We visited a Foss family favorite, the Clambake, near Old Orchard Beach, and got lobster dinners in downtown Portland on July 4th. I’d never had grilled lobster before, but Dave found a recipe on-line, and we brought home a bag of lobsters and some charcoal. The grilled lobsters were delicious, tender and flavorful, which more than made up for the horror of killing and gutting them. (When you boil lobsters, you can just throw them into a pot of boiling water and avert your eyes.) I’ll spare you the details, except to say that when I took a photograph of my friend Dave, knife positioned like a spear above the lobster’s head (“Julia Child says this is the most humane way to kill a lobster”), he muttered, “Never show that to anyone.”

Before Dave and Melissa left on Tuesday, and we discussed what to do for lunch. I suggested ordering lobster rolls to pick up from Spurwink Country Kitchen; that way we could eat lunch and finish our game of canasta. On our way to pick them up, I decided to swing by Higgins Beach, where the surfers like to congregate. We drove a few blocks, until the road bumped up against the coast and we were treated to a view of waves crashing to shore and swimmers running in and out of the surf. It was about the third time I’d forced Melissa and Dave to accompany me on one of my Higgins Beach drive-bys, and as I gazed at this beautiful scene, Dave finally inquired, “What is the point of these little excursions?”

“Well, to see the waves,” I replied, as if this was the most obvious thing in the world. Waves are always of interest to me, because I like to body surf. If there aren’t any waves, and the water is flat, well, no body-surfing. And what I saw at Higgins Beach boded well for the rest of the week. Though there weren’t too many waves on Thursday, they gradually picked up. The surfing was half decent on Friday (though the frigid temperature made it difficult to spend more than 25 minutes in the water), and by Sunday, when a hurricane was speeding up the coast, the waves were almost too big. At one point, I wondered if it was possible to break a rib while body surfing, and my mother darkly reminded me that a man died last year body surfing in Wells.

When I was small, I lugged around a boogie board at the beach, and I thought riding the waves on my boogie board was the coolest thing ever. My father and my grandfather body surfed, but I had little interest in joining them, because my boogie board was bright orange and what could be cooler than that? Then one day we walked down the beach and my father announced that he was going for a swim. The waves were excellent down here, and I felt betrayed. If my father had only bothered to tell me that we were going to walk down the beach AND go swimming, I would have brought my boogie board. Angry about this missed opportunity, I screamed and yelled and stood sullenly on the shore. But it was a perfect day, and the water was full of people, and finally I ran in, and started body surfing. I was six or seven years old, and I never used a boogie board again.

In order to body surf, it helps to have good timing. You have to gauge when the wave is going to crash, and dive into it as it crashes, so that it will carry you to shore. If you gauge wrong, well, the wave will crash on your head and crush you, which is no fun at all. I love body surfing, but today it’s something of a lost art. Not many people do it, and boogie boards — which are about 100 times more sophisticated than when I was a child — are much more popular. Not that there’s anything wrong with boogie boards. My mom has one. (“Aren’t you a little old for a boogie board?” a small girl asked her as she bobbed around.) But I prefer body surfing. On a boogie board, you’re on top of the wave, and it carries you to shore like a piece of driftwood, but when you body surf, it feels like you’ve become part of the wave, and the roar of the surf fills your ears, and if it’s a good wave you ride it until you exhaust your lung capacity. There’s an element of danger and risk to body surfing, and that’s part of the reason I like it. It’s one of those unregulated activities, like hiking, that you can just go out and do without anyone asking you to sign a waiver or wear a safety helmet, and so it’s perfect for someone like me, who doesn’t like rules or authority.

My father takes a similar interest in the waves and remains the master of body surfing. Last year he sent me a photograph from the Portland Press Herald of a 54-year-old man body surfing at Higgins Beach on Oct. 16. Just looking at this photograph makes me feel cold. The photo caption says, “The water temperature was in the low 50s, but [Craig Clark] said he started surfing here when he was a kid and does it year round. He said he prefers body surfing to surfboarding because ‘the feeling is much more pure.’” Next to the photograph, my father scribbled, “Dad’s Idol.”

There’s no need to wonder how the waves are today, because my dad has already sent me an update via e-mail. “Waves 3-5 again today,” he wrote. “DAD.” As for me, I’m here at the office. But I wish I was still at the beach.