Summer Activities: Part 2 - Beach Games

Last week I covered Ultimate Frisbee as one of my favorite summer activities, discussing the rules and what-not. This week, for my second installment in this series, I will be detailing my favorite games to play on the beach. I'm not talking about boogie boards and fishing, no. I'm talking about the you-better-like-sand-cause-you're-gunna-get-sandy-games. Doesn't take a genius to figure out playing a game on the beach will get sandy real quick. Don't be scared though, not all of these games are going make you sweat. I've thrown in some games for the not so athletic ones, or for when you just need a break and a corona. So let's get to it.

Bocce Ball
Bocce ball is one of my family's favorite games to play on the beach. This game is very simple but can get rather competitive at times. The basic idea behind this game can be summed up in a few short rules:

1. Each player has two colored balls, every player has a different color.
2. Split everyone into equal teams.
3. One team starts by throwing a smaller white ball.
4. Each person takes turns throwing their colored balls at the small white ball
5. The person/team who gets their ball(s) closest to the white ball, scores.

The official rules are long and very specific and rather boring in my mind. So I just kinda forget about most of them. My family has found a more enjoyable way to play that's more relaxed and easier to play. For us, we still have the teams and all that, but we make the whole beach our playing field. So we try our hardest to find as many holes and and sand castles as possible, I mean what fun is a tiny court compared to sand castles as obstacles?

Ladder Ball
This game is perfect for just taking a step back and enjoying life, well for about five minutes anyways until you start playing. This game is simple. Two people on each team, one on each side. Each side has a small ladder with three rungs. The top rung is worth 3 points, middle is worth 2 points, and the bottom is worth only 1 point. There are a few ways to play, I've found the fastest is to just add your points and the first team to get 21 points wins.

The longer, more competitive way is cancel out points. For example, say one team lands one of their bolos on the top rung (3 points) and the other team lands one of their bolos on the middle rung (2 points). Since the first team scored more points than the second, you would subtract Team 2's points from Team 1's points, so Team 1 would only gain 1 point. This allows for teams to block each other from scoring.

Also, to win, the team has to score exactly 21 points, so if they have 20 points and land on the middle rung, they would be 'reset' to 13 points. Now, this is just my family's rules that we enjoy playing.

Volleyball
No beach trip would be complete without a game of volleyball. I think we all know how to play volleyball by this point in our lives. If not, I'm sorry, you suck. Watch Top Gun.

Spikeball

This game was recently aired on shark tank and although I have never played, it looks freaking awesome. Instead of me butchering the rules just watch this video:

Kan Jam

From my experience, not many people have heard of this game. Kan Jam is, how can I put this...fantastic. So what you need is a Frisbee and the Kan jam tubes. The rules are summed up by this photo:

Cornhole
Cornhole is just a classic and again another game we know how to play, but in case you forgot, the rules are easy.

Frescobol
Originally a Brazilian game, this game is much like ping pong on the beach without a table. Played with two people who have a wooden paddle where the objective is to keep the ball in the air as long as possible. This might sound lame at first but trust me, you'll be diving and running to hit the ball, especially if you have a bad partner.

When you inevitably take a trip to the beach, keep these games in mind. Most of them you need very minimal equipment to play. The most important point is that these games are games for many people. So get some friends, go the the beach and have fun. (Don't forget sunscreen, or else you won't be doing much of anything for the next week).