I vividly remember the very first time I visited Stora Hult Strand in Vejbystrand. It was the spring of 1997 and Charlotte and I had been dating for about six months. After a night in Malmö, we made a quick pitstop at her summer house on our way back to Göteborg.

The ancient name of the area within the village of Vejbystrand where the family house sits is Stora Hult, which roughly translates into “the big forest”. There’s not much of a forest here today, though.

The image above is from last night at the beach in Stora Hult. The first time I walked along it, I remember thinking how wonderfully untouched it looked. Unlike any of the beaches I’d ever been to thus far, much of Stora Hult Strand was covered with seaweed, rocks, and driftwood. As we walked along the shoreline, a pungent smell from rotting seaweed lingered but didn’t disturb us at all.

Stora Hult Strand is unique and about as far as you can get from your typical postcard-perfect beaches in the Seychelles, on the Greek islands, in Spain, Hawaii, along Southern California’s coast, or South East Asia. And because it was so unapologetically natural, I thought it looked really exotic.

I was alone there last night. Most people were at home, sitting in front of the “tube”, utterly oblivious of the phenomenal scene playing out down by the sea. What a privilege it was.