The ocean is a powerful presence in the novel, both symbolically and literally. LaCour depicts it as beautiful and wild, but also dangerous and very deadly. Though it takes both Marin’s mother and grandfather from her, it also represents home and belonging, as well as a point of connection to her mother. Where another person may visit their mother’s grave, Marin visits the ocean and the beach where they scattered her mother’s ashes. Its presence in her mind and life rises above ideas of good or bad. Though some of the worst things in Marin’s life have come at the hands of the ocean—and specifically Ocean Beach—some of her best memories have taken place there was well.

One such formative experience was Marin and Mabel’s late-night trip to the beach, during which they became sexually intimate for the first time: “We were miraculous. We were beach creatures. We had treasures in our pockets and each other on our skin” (113). There are a number of times where Marin seems to suggest that the ocean requires special knowledge to survive. This often comes up when friends of her late mother are talking to her—for example, one of the surfers, Emily, says of Gramps’s habit of walking the surf, “I know I don’t need to tell you this […] But it can be dangerous out here.