World’s #1 Beach Bum, Earl Paul of Ocean City

By Cindy Christy Fertsch

Nine thousand two hundred days is the equivalent of more than 25 years. While most of us may find it hard to imagine doing anything that consistently, Ocean City’s Earl Paul exists outside of the norm. The self-proclaimed “World’s Undisputed #1 Beach Bum,” has made it a mission to put his feet in the sand for the last 9,200 consecutive days.

As sure as the sun that rises over our beaches, Earl Paul makes his way down to the sand on Plymouth Place each day. Whether the Boardwalk is buzzing with summer heat and bathing suits or the ground is covered in snow, Earl Paul does not miss a day at the beach, which confirms that he truly is the world’s most dedicated beach bum.

“I’m at Plymouth Place, in front of the water slide every day, rain or shine, even in the snow. If you don’t sit on the beach for three hours, at least every day, you can’t call yourself a beach bum. It’s my game, I make the rules, and three hours is the rule. Some days I do more, like five hours, but I do at least three hours every single day,” said Earl.

“The hardest days are in the winter,” he says. “The calendar says winter is three months, but on the beach, winter is Thanksgiving through Memorial Day.”

Shortly after Paul retired to Ocean City following his career as a Philadelphia-based union pipefitter, he faced the terrible loss of his beloved wife. When he should have been reveling in his golden years, he instead found himself immersed in grief and sorrow.

“Catherine was her name,” shares Earl about his late wife. “She was in line at the drug store right across the street from Frankford High School in Philadelphia. I walked up behind her and started talking, and that conversation kept going for 40 years.”

Her untimely death at the age of 61 occurred two years after their arrival in Ocean City. Drowning in grief, Earl found himself uncertain how he would continue to breathe without Catherine by his side.

“Then something, somewhere, told me to go to the beach,” he explained. “It’s been my savior. I’ve been here ever since.”

Earl is now 87 years old, has survived five bouts of cancer, and is still living his life to the fullest with the healing power of sand between his toes daily. Some days, you’ll even find him body-boarding in the ocean to which he attributes his health and vitality.

“To do it every day, to be a beach bum every day, you have to stay healthy. I want people to know that cancer is not a death sentence,” said Earl in a recent meeting on the beach where we ran into his friend George Gray.

“He is in my Boogie Board Club,” explained Earl. “There used to be 30 of us! Now it’s me and him.”

During the 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic, the beach was temporarily closed to the public, but Earl wasn’t having it. He refused to leave the beach until the police arrived with a warrant for his arrest but then agreed to relocate the daily beach visits to the bottom of the Boardwalk entrance where, as far as Earl was concerned, “there was still sand, so it counts.”

Earl Paul’s memoir, “East of the Boardwalk,” is a self-published book describing his observations of the beach and the Ocean City community at large. Earl reports it has sold over 1,400 copies. You can pick up a copy at Sun Rose Book store in Ocean City.

Photos by Tynan Hand