On the Beach

A beach can be a place of surprises. Items wash up, some living creatures or their remnants; others are discarded, or lost items, washed overboard or out to sea. We always notice these items and wonder about them.

 

Like these steps, what is the story here? 

 

Were they attached to a house or cottage and washed to sea during a bad storm? Found at the back of the beach, they lead one to think they were washed up during high seas.

Drift wood on the beach is a curiosity.

 

This piece looks like an alien creature to me. What do you see?

Sand often has impressions of wave action, like the faint lines on the sand under this weathered oyster shell. 

 

This live gastropod was bigger than we normally see along the beach, left behind at low tide. We returned it to deep water.

 

Lobster traps are a common find along beaches on the island. Was this one washed overboard, broken from a line of traps at sea, or washed away from its location on shore?

 

The loss of this trap was a financial loss to the fisherman. It is good the trap did not stay on the bottom of the ocean and continue to catch lobsters. This condition is known as ghost fishing by lost traps or nets.

Jelly fish are common victims of the tides along the beach.

 

Remnants of the dried creatures are common as the tide returns on hot summer days.

Sea weed, dried and fresh, both inhabit the beaches as well. The dried seaweed, plentiful along some beaches, makes a good fertilizer for the garden, a natural addition, like my grandfather O'Brien used on his vegetable beds in Newfoundland. We collected some for our vegetable patch when we visited Belmont Park earlier this summer.

 

 

Fresh seaweed is colourful along the beach. In my youth, interest in sea life prompted me to study phycology, the science of algae. The reproductive lives of seaweed were complicated but interesting to my younger self. Looking at brown seaweed today, though it is variously coloured, I see the inspiration for buoys or floats fishers use. 

 

This buoy on the beach washed ashore from a net or trap.

 

It is an example of how people learned from nature; the brown seaweed/algae need the air bladders to stay near the surface of the water to avail of light for photosynthesis. The air bladders are important for food manufacturing; buoys are part of food acquisition.  

While a beach provides a place of relaxation, its changing nature makes it a place of interest as well.  We look forward to our next visit.