Tag: beach

Tidepooling in Key Largo Florida

Initially I put a pin in Key West (on the map) as a joke, because that’s where Robert the Doll lives, but seeing as I have been such a devoted fan of this infamous haunted doll I decided what the Hell, I might as well!

I had already had a very long day when I arrived in Key Largo. It was getting dark and I wanted to find a place to sleep so I could enjoy driving through the islands in daylight. So I found a campground here, by luck, as an internet search prior to leaving that morning revealed most were full and not taking any more people without at least a day’s reservation. The office was closed but some friendly RVers told us that the manager would be around in the morning to collect any fees we were unable to give them during the previous day, as there were spots still available. The campground itself seemed a tiny village of RVs shoved into a series of mini streets, with one other tenting couple beyond a fence where the tent plots were. The spaces for tents were just large enough to contain our tent but not large enough to properly secure the ropes down. It was also on sand but it was accommodated with electricity and water. Unbeknownst to me I was also right next to a little stretch of beach. It was rocky, mind you, and beyond the rocks were gnarls of sea weed but for me that’s the best beach I could ask for. I scoured it in search of shells and life that evening before the sun went down, that night after I did the laundry at 11PM or so, and again the next morning. There was fragments of coral skeletons everywhere, scattered about like common rocks and pebbles. There were also a few tiny shells here and there and one big crab in a burrow that initially looked like a ginormous spider.

And then of course there were star fish. The buggar was as big as my palm and oddly colored. I picked it up but not long after it started oozing orange goo as it tried to ankle it out of my hand. You see, this is why star fish creep me out. They are sooo alien. I put it back before finding a tiny sea anemone, a whole school of the brightest teeny tiny snails you could ask for. There was even a conch-like snail the size of my thumb I also picked up for some reason.

I picked it up and was fine with it when it was sitting still but when it started to ooze out of its shell like a cow tongue trying to come out… well I kind of tweaked a bit and flipped back into the water. I was more comfortable with the hermit crab I found adorned with a fantastically beautiful shell that seemed five sizes too big for it. Of course to make the wildlife all the more amazing there was a swarm of little throat-bobbing lizards skittering up and down the trees giving us that whole Jurassic Park feel. I loved the lizards… as corny as that sounds.

I watched the sun go down sitting on a dock, surrounded on all sides by bath warm sea water gently lapping by. The sunset itself was gorgeous, the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen and I got some fantastic photos of that, I’m happy to say.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!


 

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Isabel the “Sea Serpent” – Virginia

It was still only two o’clock or so when I made the decision to continue driving. There was a rumor that a driftwood sea serpent was lurking around here so I had to find it. I found the serpent, took the usual tourist photos standing in front of it and then enjoyed the beach a bit. The ocean was angry and the waves were crashing down the shore hard. There was even one hapless guy, who against all regulations on the many signs, swam out into the waves and started surfing. He made two waves before I lost interest and left. I found a few shells here and there but nothing overly interesting. The only thing here I did not find on Cape Cod or Maine were dozens and dozens of mermaid purses. These are the hard spiked eggs of skates, small rays that live off the coast. It also pains me a bit to see those because they obviously were spat into the world with much pain and distress…. Seems a waste to have so many wash up to shore!

There was a huge fiddler crab here which needed only a little coaxing to scamper down the beach. I nudged its legs with my foot and it went scuttling over the sand like no one’s business. Fast little sucker! And when he stopped he puffed up like a rooster and made threatening gestures with his claws. I took lots of photos and one video, eventually protecting him from three loose dogs before moving onward.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!


 

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Moolac Beach Oregon

When I got to Oregon I realized there was nothing on the roster, I was just driving through. This is when you know I didn’t proof read before I left… how could I not have something planned for Oregon? Its absolutely loaded with fossils and was the once fawned over home of a college I wanted to attend in grade school. (Yes, I planned WAY ahead. Nothing ever came to pass as life just doesn’t work like that!)

I looked up where to find fossils and there was a ton of confusing information. As I guessed many people just walked the highways, the rivers, and the beach fronts, all finding various artifacts, mostly marine in nature. I looked again and found a forum post about a woman who went to Moolack Beach. She came home with a ton of fossil shells and apparently the beach was popular amongst other rock hounds looking for fossils, agate, petrified wood, and other interesting little things. The beach even washed up some sort of structures from an Asian tsunami.

There was one issue. Low tide was at 7:30AM, meaning I’d have to get up at 3AM, just a few short hours of sleep, and get going. This I did. Initially I wasn’t fond of the idea but once I got there I was convinced. This place was amazing. To most of the local hotel people it was a sandy beach and some waves but if you looked closer it was covered in rocks and had the most extensive and deep tide pools I have ever seen. The water had washed the clay on part of the beach into these fantastic rippled structures. A lava rock full of shells lay on the ground. I found a very nice chunk of petrified wood, and as usual there were two ghastly bloated starfish loitering in the tidepools. One was bright red, the other bright orange, and they were the big suckers.

It was drizzling and I didn’t expect to see anyone else but upon arriving there were three other rock hounds picking the beach and by the time I left an hour later there were fifteen of them. I asked one about fossils but she was clueless, obviously here searching for something else. The search therefore was limited and I am not sure I found much of anything but that’s alright, it was a very interesting little beach full of character.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!


 

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