Tuesday 20 July 2010

Searching for water finding air

Last night, Mark, Tilly and I went down to walk on the beach. I did not take the camera with me as the sky had been a uniform grey all day, there had been no light, no contrast and now it was getting near sun(!) set too. Of course, there was a most interesting subject on the pebbles! A tree washed up, encrusted in beautiful pale-blue-lace-agate goose barnacles, making music in the wind ~ a glorious counterpoint to the crashing crescendo of the roiling sea.
A warm wind blew mist and sea-spray all around us. Jelly fish abounded on the shore. My mouth was full of salty air. Tilly had a wonderful time fetching ball. I spread out my arms, put my head back and spun and spun and spun. I love spinning.

When I awoke this morning, even though it was, as it so often is with us, what I call a Pembrokeshire grey, I decided to go back down and check if the sea had reclaimed its gift.

The tinkling chimes of their shells told me before I saw them that they were still there.

As I was crouching down, engrossed in clicking away, I was joined by a young lady, (Jen), and her camera. She and her partner, Bru, were on holiday from the mountains of North Carolina, USA. They were hiking the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pembrokeshire_Coast_Path, all 186 miles of it. They had not expected the cold weather we have here!! I was passing through North Carolina in the summer of 1986 and I remember we stopped at a roadside garage for petrol and followed the owner's example, standing in front of the open door of the freezers to cool down. It never gets that hot here!!

I loved the way these little beauties danced in slow motion ~ in and out of their delicate shells. I am hoping they will get taken back into the sea soon. The lifeguards had apparently tried to tow the tree with their quad bike, but it is so big and so water logged it was too heavy :~(

Grace

grace

Brave

Brave

Dance of the Barnacles

Dance of the Barnacles

barnacles



A Windchime Necklace

A windchime necklace

6 comments:

  1. omg
    amazing
    barnacles rule

    the Santa MONICA pier in L.A. has amazing barnacle action...you'd love it
    xo

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  2. Helen they look soooo glorious! Are they still there?! I hope that they made it back to the sea somehow! Welcome to blogging! I saw Amelia tweeting about you this morning.

    Steph

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  3. Hi Gillian and thank you. You are the very first to comment on my blog...YAY. I sure would love that barnacle action in Santa Monica! Take care. x x x

    Hi Steph. I phoned the local seal rescue to see if they could help the lifeguards take them back into the sea. After they finished laughing at me (!) and realised I was serious they said they'd give it a go. The tree was not there when I visited on Sunday, so hopefully they survived. Thank you for the warm welcome and I will go and thank Amelia for the tweet :~) Now I need to sort out my next post!

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  4. Oh, you take me there. I can feel the wind and taste the salt air. sigh.

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  5. So envious of your find - I found some at Freshwater West when I went for a new year's walk there, but they wouldn't open at all. Love the pics!

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  6. I have never seen anything like these before.. I don't think they are in our part of the world. They are utterly beautiful....

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