Synopsis:
Donald is a lifeguard with special attitudes towards women and sharks!

Comments:
Barks' first beach story is also the most straightforward; Donald and the nephews spend a day at the beach and a number of things happen: The nephews lure Donald with a fake shark, a real shark turns up, Donald saves a damsel in distress. Well...
Barks even borrowed one of his shark gags from the contemporary animated Disney short Sea Scouts.

Synopsis:
Donald longs for a small cabin at the coast where he can just sit and do some fishing, but the estate agent sells him a worthless shed...

Comments:
Barks presents us to an estate agent with an expected, flowery vocabulary. Donald asks if the cabin is near to the ocean: Why, lad, it's so close ocean liners rub their paint off going past! Can't get much closer than that, eh?
The story was made during the Second World War, and in the last pages Donald has to deal with a wartime sea mine, that threatens to destroy the whole beach area.

Synopsis:
Donald is photographing at the beach while the nephews play baseball. A baby seal wants to play and Donald sees the opportunity for some easy money.

Comments:
Barks is presenting two of his own favourite pastimes in this story - photography and baseball. As for the first he went on to make numerous more stories (see a selection HERE), but the topic of baseball was a different matter.
This is, in fact, one of the very few stories, which incorporates typical American sports - in this case baseball. Barks soon realized that such topics would mean little or nothing to an audience abroad (at least at the time!), and he consequently stopped this train of direction.

Synopsis:
Donald is a coastguard and it is his job to patrol the bay for smugglers. But they do not find Donald that hard to fool...

Comments:
Especially in the early years of his comic book career Barks had a tendency to use contemporary, national events as part of the plotlines. This story is an example. During the postwar period there was a great anxiety about shady persons landing contrabande - and spies - on the American coasts, and this story contains both...

Synopsis:
Donald and Gladstone are looking on the beach for a lost ruby belonging to the Maharajah of Backdore. The finder's fee is 10,000 dollars!

Comments:
This story takes place on the beach as well as in the beach! At first the two adversaries look for the ruby on the surface of the sand, but soon they (well, Donald, that is!) start to dig up the whole area! We are left with a really in-depth story about beaches...

Synopsis:
Gyro is fishing from the beach and he catches more than the other anglers. They suspect him of using one of his inventions but he is not...

Comments:
Gyro has always been defined as the greatest inventor in the duck universe, and we - as well as all the Duckburgians - expect him to produce one more spectacular invention after another.
But in this story we are puzzled: Gyro is on a fishing trip amongst a crowd of other anglers, and he catches so many fish that he is accused of using one of his inventions, but he is not. He is just having a good time - and a lot of luck...

Synopsis:
At the Beachcomber's picnic every guy has to find something special for his girlfriend. Donald finds a fine cowry shell for Daisy, but then Gladstone joins the party!

Comments:
Once again, Donald and Gladstone find themselves at the beach, and this time they are even joined by their favourite girl - Daisy. Of course, they are frantically courting the damsel by trying to find special objects for her at the seaside.

Synopsis:
A crooked businessman figures if he can destroy the lighthouse on Cape Quack he will be able to buy the land...cheap. Donald tries to stop him!

Comments:
Normally, you would probably think of a sandy beach as being a nice, cosy, and warm place to stay, but this is certainly not the case here! The Ducks are fighting both the crooked businessman and the raging elements throughout the story...
Incidentally, Barks made more stories with lighthouses; just think of FG1946 Santa's Stormy Visit in which Donald battles a tiresome albatross, and U$23 The Strange Shipwrecks in which he battles the conniving Beagle Boys!

Synopsis:
Donald is a lifeguard at the beach but his merits are overshadowed by the JW hound. He decides to get even by making it flunk a JW test.

Comments:
As in WDCS033 'Lifeguard' Donald stars as a lifeguard, but this time as a fairly useless and irresponsible one. His only aim is to irritate the innocent and responsible JW hound.
It can be speculated that Barks took the story's title from a music group that emerged in those years - The Beach Boys (see more below).

Synopsis:
Donald dresses up as Scrooge to avoid an appointment. Scrooge dresses up as Donald to avoid a donation. The game is afoot...

Comments:
A good part of the story takes place at the beach, where Donald is a member of a surf club. Normally, the art of surfing takes place in the warm summers, but Barks adds a twist to this conception; he lets the events unfold at Christmas time!!!
Surfing was, at the time, a new sporting craze which had originated in Hawaii and was soon known along the Pacific coastline. Especially The Beach Boys were known to advocate this special youth culture. Barks thought it would be a short-lived fad, but time has since proven him wrong. Still, he did his homework; the story is full of special surfer terms...