When you live by the ocean, rust is prolific.
There’s rust on my vents.
There’s rust on my son’s bike that’s only four months old.
Rust is all that’s left of this handle.
Obviously, all the beach chairs are laden with rust.
 
Check out the propane tank on my grill.
That one’s only a few months old. Check out this one. It’s slightly older.
When we first moved to coastal Carolina, we rented a duplex for a few months while we researched different islands trying to find which one would be best for our family. On one of our first nights in our rental, my husband decided to grill burgers on a small, portable grill on the outside deck. Not wanting anything to stain the deck, he decided to grab an old cookie sheet and put it underneath the grill before he used it. Not thinking much of it, he left the cookie sheet outside overnight.
The deck fared well, but the next morning, he came in carrying a cookie sheet covered with rust spots. “I know things are much more prone to rust near the coast, but how can you possibly get this much rust in one night?†he asked, dumbfounded.
Two years ago, we ended up spending a little time back in Chicago. During this stint, we dropped off my beloved minivan to get the wheels aligned. The mechanic was aghast. “I’ve never had such a difficult time before adjusting the tie rods (In my mind, he couldn’t have conveyed less meaning if he had spoken in Swahili, but my husband clearly understood this language of his). We’ll have to cut them off and put on new ones. I’ve never seen them so rusted together before.†I’d imagine not, if you’ve been working in the Chicagoland area your whole life. Try moving to a small island in the Atlantic for a while. Things will change, trust me.
There’s not a whole lot that you can do to combat the ocean water, other than to avoid metals where possible. These chairs, for instance, made out of recycled plastic lumber, are immensely popular around here, mainly because they’re so corrosion resistant.
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Sadly, not everything can be made out of recycled plastic lumber, and it’s hardly inexpensive, so rust is alive and well here on the island. In fact, some islanders say that rust is the new black.
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think that one will ever fly anywhere else.
Gives new meaning to the geographical descriptor “rust-belt”!
Interesting twist! I didn’t think about that when I wrote this post. Could cause some confusion if the tourist industry were to pick up the term!
This post made me laugh. Up here in Ottawa we salt the roads in the winter to melt the ice (sad but true) my younger sister lived in Charlotte, NC for a few years and her mechanic once asked her if she was driving on the beach with all the rust, we laugh about it because there is really nothing you can do, eventually our cars just rust out.
That’s so funny. In Carolina, on the coast anyway, it’s hilarious when it does snow, because we’re so completely unprepared for it since it happens so rarely. I have seen them use a little salt on the roads, but nothing compared to Chicago, and I can’t even imagine what places like Ottawa go through in a season. I don’t know if this is true or not, but someone once told me that there is one snow plow for about 25 coastal counties. So, mostly we all just sit at home and wait for it to melt. Clearly that strategy wouldn’t work by you!