A plaque at one of the places we have stayed during our vacation in California summed it up pretty well:

“If you are lucky enough to live by the water … you are lucky enough.”

Certainly, a large body of water generally tempers climatic extremes. But life can get even better. You can be more than “lucky enough.”

That is, if you are within hearing distance of the surf.

Unless you’re one of that 1 percent who lives year-round on the edge of an ocean, no sound says “vacation” quite like waves breaking on the shore.

The silence … followed by the long cuh-raassshhhh. Punctuated by a thud, now and then, as retreating water smacks into the next breaker.

The surf at Long Beach is modest because of the breakwater built about two miles offshore back in the 1940s. But it’s not as if you need five-foot breakers to get the benefit of the surf.

I’ve been told of vacation destinations where the waves are so big and so near that a visitor can feel them through the dry ground they stand on. A little town near Acapulco, for instance.

Can’t feel them here. But all I need is to hear them.

Rolling in, the ca-rasshh … then the sort of hiss you sometimes can pick up as the bubbles in the sea foam break up, en masse.

I grew up five city blocks from the ocean, but it was just far enough to make the surf inaudible. I benefited from the proximity to the Pacific, and how cool and mild it kept temperatures. But I couldn’t quite hear nature’s lullaby. Too many buildings and people between me and the waves.

I challenge all but the most “wired” person to lie down and listen to the surf for more than 10 minutes … and remain awake. It’s like counting sheep without having actually to count anything. It’s no accident that many masseuses play sea sounds during a session, with the highlight being the steady crash of breakers.

For six nights, we were about 200 feet from the ocean, with nothing between our rooms and the sea except sand.

We could hear the surf perfectly well even during the day, when joggers and cyclists and skaters were parading past us on the bike path. But at night, when the traffic was down to zero and the world was quiet, it was like the sound of the surf had been turned up from “background noise” to “main melody.”

I live on an island, but it has almost zero surf in any direction. For reasons of flood control. Well, and the Gulf is not a very dynamic body of water. It hardly moves.

But the steady surf here at Long Beach?

It is calming. Soothing. Almost hypnotic. The time here flew by because of it, but it left a lasting memory, too. Sweet, sweet dreams.

If you are lucky enough to live next to the surf, you are more than lucky enough.