Labyrinth By The Sea

We've had a preview of summer, a couple of temperate days by the coastline in the past week. We still get the chilly breeze off the water at times, but the agreeable weather has coaxed people back outside after the long winter we endured.

On one of those days, I ventured out in the evening to see the sunset at McCook Point Park in Niantic. This location has a beach and a grassy park and playground on a high hill. There is quite a view from up there. I stayed in the car for most of my visit, because the wind off the water was chilly that evening and I was giving in to my tendency to be a chicken when it's cold.

However, I did get out for about 10 minutes and took a walk by the breaking waves. The fading light created a pretty glow over the scene. Some strapping young men were daring each other or playing some game, because about three of them took off their shirts and shoes and dove in the water for a polar dip! I'm sure the water is about 35 degrees!

As I made my way back to the car, I wandered over to the side of the beach where I saw a signpost stuck in the sand. It turns out it was the entrance to a labyrinth created with beach stones. The sign indicated the folks at the Niantic Community Church were the creators and the sign listed guidelines for using the labyrinth. I decided to walk it.

It's not a big labyrinth, so it doesn't take long to walk to the center and back out again. I wondered how a maker knows the way to draw out the path and keep it proportional and a correct design.

Because the labyrinth is small, there isn't much time to get deep into reflection when walking it, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. When I got to the center I set down on the center stone a small piece of white seaglass I'd found by the water.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a large, permanent labyrinth on every beach? A place to respect, reflect, and celebrate the beauty of where you are in the moment?

If you want to know more about McCook Point Park in East Lyme, CT, visit my BeachBathAndTrash.com website to buy my downloadable beach eGuide.

Thank you for stopping here!

~ Cheryl

Sea Urchin on the Beach!

We've finally had a stretch of sunny, clear days, though the air and wind is still a bit chilly at times. I went for a walk on one of my favorite beaches here in southeastern Connecticut, and it's been weeks since I visited. I was really amazed by how even the sandscape was, and the beach was very clean (well, it always is in the spring).

The waves were so small on this afternoon that you could barely hear any surf. Don't let the picture fool you. I didn't do a lot of walking or looking around for treasures, I simply wanted to enjoy the warm sunshine, the fresh air and the vast view this day.

So it wasn't until I got up to leave that I took a few moments to walk at the water's edge and I mostly saw slipper limpet shells and one piece of sea glass, but nothing much of interest. I was hoping to find some angel's wings shells, but no luck there. Suddenly I looked down and saw a sea urchin!

Of course, it was dead and most of the spines were gone, but it was a fun find because I've never found one before! Just when you think there isn't anything exciting to discover, when summer hasn't begun yet and winter is still right behind you...

I looked out toward Long Island and saw the Cross Sound Ferry heading out for the first evening trip, and I thought to myself that an adventure is in order. Perhaps this summer I will get to take the ferry to visit some New York relatives.

Until the next beach adventure...

~ Cheryl

March Thaw at the Beach

Finally! After seven weeks of shoveling from snowstorms at least once each six or seven days, we are finally having a spring thaw. The time change, strong sunshine, melting of the one-foot-deep ground cover and the reappearance of birds and small wild animals makes it feel like we have finally turned the corner.

Blue Shutters Beach in Charlestown, RI.

It will be a while before we see green grass, but just having days where the temperature gets over 40 degrees inspires one to venture out. So I visited a couple of favorite Rhode Island spots to see what I could discover. Despite some huge puddles from the snowmelt and various potholes and muddy spots, I managed to get to two areas: Blue Shutters beach in Charlestown, RI, and Watch Hill in Westerly, RI.

Most of the snow was melted from Blue Shutters, and the sand was easy to walk on. The water was clear and beautiful, as always, and I found a giant oyster shell.

Frozen Watch Hill bay in Westerly, RI.

Over in Watch Hill, the bay behind the yacht club was still full of ice and snow. The wind was quite chilly so I didn't venture over the dune to the beach. Often if the sun is strong it feels great inland, but once you get by the shore the wind is pretty brutal and you still have to bundle up. All there is to see right now are the empty, closed-up summer shops and a few other passing visitors. Sometimes summer seems such a long way off.

This week the first piping plover was spotted on the beach at Napatree Point Conservation Area, a sure sign of spring nesting season. With the upcoming equinox, Old Man Winter may finally retreat back North for good. 

Spontaneous Stone Sculptures at the Beach - Harkness Memorial State Park

In A Passage to India, one of my favorite novels by E. M. Forster (1879-1970), the female characters Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested travel from England to Bombay, India, to begin a new life there. Early in the story, the ladies lament that so far they "aren't seeing the other side of the world." They have been stuck in a sort of contained British settlement and long to see the "real India," of which they have only had a glimpse. (It was a glimpse of the moon in the Ganges.)

Mrs. Moore isn't as disappointed as the younger Miss Quested, because, as the book reads, "she was forty years older and had learnt that Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually."

How often is it that we have the most fun when we plan it? I've observed over recent years that the most interesting and fun moments are ones that I stumble into. I often write about these adventures in this blog.

This entire year, so far, I've been champing at the bit to get back to Point Judith, Rhode Island, to see how the landscape has changed since Superstorm Sandy rolled in last fall. If you recall, I previously wrote about all the cairns covering the point beneath the lighthouse there, a scene I stumbled into one weekend. I haven't yet been able to make the long drive over there (and get in the gate, which is often locked) to see what has become of all the stone monuments.

Spring garden scene at Harkness State Park

This week, we had one day that was sunny and much warmer than any of the others so far this chilly spring. I wanted to get out, so chose to visit Harkness State Park in Waterford, here in Connecticut. As I've mentioned before, this is a property with diverse features, including gardens, a sweeping lawn, a beach, a mansion to rent for functions, biking paths, a picnic area, and more. On the day I went, I didn't expect to get there and find it shrouded in chilly fog, when just a mile inland it was sunny and warm.

A frog statue in a garden by the mansion.

However, the heavens heard my request for some sun, for after I parked the car, the fog started to burn off and I found the beach was the most pleasant spot, protected from the shore breeze, unpopulated, and the perfect place for quiet contemplation and enjoyment of the sounds of the waves, foghorns, and shorebirds.

I beachcombed for a bit, then I stumbled on what appeared to be a couple of little altars made of wood, dried grasses and leaves, rocks and shells. Hmmmm...I couldn't figure that out. Maybe it was a playground for fairies.

A little altar for sand fairies?

Then I saw that somebody had collected a bunch of rocks and created a circle with them. This reminded me of a large, fort-like circle of rocks at Point Judith, which had preceded the erection of all the cairns and other stone sculptures there by at least 2 years.

It was then that my adventure really began, because I thought to myself, "OK, if you can't get to Point Judith just now, then start by making your own cairns here." It would be my first try...ever. I have read about the intricate art of stacking stones, and I recalled that some creations defy gravity, their makers being expert at balance, shape and form. I took a few rocks and stacked them crudely.

A person's gotta start somewhere! I tried another stack.

Lacking some energy and patience, I moved on, and saw a big, flat slab of rock, a mound emerging from the sand. I figured it would be easy to just pile a random assortment of rocks all over it, and see what happened. So I dove in and began.

Remember those days when you were a kid, and you sat on the floor with your toys and just arranged them, or played with them, from moment to moment, with no agenda...your play (or your "adventure") just evolved...and whatever the ending was, when you had to stop for dinner or homework, it was the end, and it was OK. That is what this felt like. And it was really great to feel that with nobody else around.

I don't care if it just looks like a pile of rocks, or if a few fall off. I hope that people walk by and wonder about it. I hope that people are inspired, or remember there's art in "found objects" and think about adding to it, or make their own version. I hope this pile survives for some time before the elements or hoodlums get to it.

Afterwards, when I was resting nearby, I was taking photos and realized I could get a really cool closeup of the sand, with my little cairns in the background.

Grains of soft, sugary sand with my cairns in the background

By the time readers get to the end of  A Passage to India, another character, Mr. Fielding, finds himself returning to Italy, where he studied as a youth, and he realizes that now, after he has had a bit of perspective from his time in India, that he feels a joy in "the harmony between the works of man and the earth that upholds them."

This passage has a deeper meaning as it relates to the story, but I was thinking about the simpleness of that phrase. It refers to man-made structures that coexist with the natural form of earth, whether an island, hills, or sea. But to me, the beauty is compounded, and the harmony more exquisite, when man creates form on Earth with earth. Which is probably why the cairns at Point Judith were so awe-inspiring to me when I first saw them. What was once the benign landscape became an entirely different form, comprised of the same elements.

I wish that this week I had been joined at Harkness by a willing group of adventurers—cairn makers—so that, like a flash mob, we could have come together spontaneously and, in a spark of time, created a grand work of art.

If you want to learn more about Harkness, check out my beach guide at the Beach Bath And Trash website.

Indian Summer Adventure in Watch Hill, Rhode Island

Sometimes you just know when it's the last good day to do beachy things before the chill of autumn settles in. We had a very short taste of Indian summer this weekend, so I made trip over to my favorite nearby seaside spot, Napatree Point in Watch Hill, Rhode Island.

Napatree Point in Watch Hill, Rhode Island

It was quite breezy and sunny, so good for a walk on the beach, or a sit on the sand, but the wind was making the water quite choppy. The water is too cold for anything but walking in the surf that stretches up onshore.

Right away I found a moon jelly (what was left of it) on the sand. I have never seen a large one of this kind before.

A moon jelly washed ashore with some eelgrass seaweed.

It's really cool to look at up close. I suppose I could have picked it up and washed it off to get a better look, and take better photos, because it felt quite firm when I touched it with my flip flop.

A close-up view of a moon jelly

The rose bush had a few late blooms, but mostly now there are just rose hips hanging brightly among the leaves.

Rose hips are the fruit that grow after the 'Rosa rugosa' blooms have died.

On top of the dunes the goldenrod nears its end. (Click any photo for a larger view.)

I bought a set of plastic sea creature molds at the dollar store earlier this year, and I had the seahorse shape in my backpack. So I decided to make a few and leave them on the sand. I wondered if people would notice when they walked by. This is what it looks like finished:

I didn't plan it this way, but as I was packing up my things to move on down the beach, a parade of visitors suddenly came by. I think there were three groups: a couple, a posse of young people, and two elderly ladies. I found myself getting my answers, as the people walked over or discovered the three seahorses I had made.

The wife in the couple brought the wee sculpture to her husband's attention, but I think she had to poke at the tip of the tail with her foot to confirm what she was seeing. I witnessed the posse barrel through the section where I made my seahorses, but I wasn't sure if this one guy's foot strategically missed a sculpture by coincidence, or if he saw it and lifted his shoe on purpose.

The elderly ladies stopped and spent the most time in contemplation. Finally, the one woman just swept her foot over the lower half of a seahorse and destroyed it. Gee, thanks. At least the people were not freaked out too much by the strange looking things in the sand. If there had been little kids among them, I bet they would have noticed and figured it out faster than the adults.

The flag is flying straight out in the stiff shore breeze.

On the way back to my car, I stopped to take new pictures of the flying horse carousel. This is a famous attraction in Watch Hill because it is the oldest existing carousel where the horses are suspended by chains and thin bars, rather than being affixed to poles. It is circa 1876. The horses "fly" around and the riders can reach for brass rings. The horses have real leather saddles and manes and tails made of real horse hair.

I like the little murals painted all around the center structure.

The carousel plays a variety of music, and as I recall, I even heard the Christmas tune "Sleigh Ride" back during a visit in July. That was a bit weird. The horses will be removed from their chains after Columbus Day, and won't be re-installed until the next summer season begins. Fans of The Candy Box, my favorite sweets shop in Watch Hill, can see a miniature carousel horse in the store's front window.

Oh believe me, the store has much more to offer than gumballs! I don't like that the store is only open seasonally, because they have the best prices for dark chocolate covered orange peels. So I'll have to wait another seven months. But it will be worth it. And with that, another beach season ends.

Until next time...

Cheryl


P.S. - If you'd like to know more about Watch Hill, my Beach eGuide is available at the Beach Bath And Trash website.

The Cutest Baby Octopus Ever at the Biomes Center in North Kingstown

As I promised in my last post, I am going to introduce you to the cutest baby octopus ever!

Last week I returned to the Biomes Marine Biology Center in Rhode Island to see this new addition for myself. Opal is an Atlantic octopus a reef octopus that was found about 10 feet from shore in Newport, RI, on August 9th. Biomes' owner, Mark Hall, acquires octopuses each year, because their life span is only 12—14 months, and this year he planned to get a specimen in October, like he has in the past.

(UPDATE: December 4, 2012 - Opal has grown big enough to be identified as a Caribbean reef octopus, which is rarely found in New England waters. He was probably carried north on the Gulf Stream and would not have survived the East Coast winter.)

But little opal was found—amazingly, because he was the size of a dime at that point— and suddenly Mark had an early replacement for Coral, who had passed away on July 16th. Coral was one of this year's two octopuses on display at Biomes, the other being Peach (I wrote about them back on July 3rd, in this post). As of last week, Peach was still hanging in there, quite at the end of her lifespan. I plan to feature her in another post soon.

According to Mark, Opal was probably around 2 weeks old when he was found, and it is not easy to determine the gender of the Atlantic octopus species until the end of their life. But Mark has a sixth sense about them, and usually just knows if he has acquired a "he" or a "she" — but as we can see by the name selection, it really doesn't matter.

When I met Opal last week, I saw that he had grown to be about the size of a quarter (to you international folks, that is a U.S. 25-cent piece, and coincidentally approximately 25mm in diameter).

OK, are you ready?

Introducing...Opal the Magnificent!

Opal the Atlantic Octopus at the Biomes Center in Rhode Island

Ta da! 

Yes, there he is, that tiny crimson blob in the back corner of his tank. (Don't worry, close-up photos are next.)

Mark has to feed Opal because the octopus doesn't know how to hunt in this tank. Those two little transparent white marks above Opal in that first photo are little shrimp that share the tank. Normally these are prey, and when I showed up, I witnessed them playing a game of "catch me if you can" with Opal. I saw that the shrimp and Opal were eyeballing each other, and Opal would occasionally make a dash toward the shrimp, but the shrimp always won, escaping with lightning speed.

I think I'll just rest my mantle on this rock.

Eventually, the parties tired of their game, and Opal did a little strolling on his rock and around the pebble bottom of the tank.

It looks like I'm walking, but I'm really not.

Octopuses propel themselves by using a funnel, a part of their body that siphons water from their gills, through and out the funnel forcibly, creating a sort of water jet.

Opal meandered around, giving me ample opportunity to take pictures.

I wonder what the little guy was thinking. I know he wasn't feeling threatened, or else he would have made an ink cloud and escaped to another corner. I wish I could have seen him make an ink cloud, though.

In the center of the tank is a fake plant. I was happy that Opal did a little investigating there, so I could see him spread out his beautiful tentacles. I wonder what it would feel like to hold such a small octopus?

As I mentioned earlier, Mark has to feed Opal frozen crab, but here is a video from September 6th that Mark posted, showing how he is teaching Opal to hunt. You can see those transparent shrimp moving about in the tank, as well as Opal using his "jet propulsion" and using his suction cups on the sides of the glass tank. Enjoy!



If you noticed in the video, there is a flat, gray rock near the fake turtle. There is a hole under that rock, and by the end of my visit, Opal had gone under there to hide. So I felt lucky that he had been active for my viewing pleasure. It will be fun to watch Opal grow bigger and bigger over the next year. What a privilege that is!

It was a Surf's Up! Sunday at Point Judith, Rhode Island

My, oh my, like I've said before: The best adventures are the ones you stumble into blindly. On Sunday I went back to the Biomes Marine Biology Center in Rhode Island to see the new baby octopus, Opal, whom I'll write about in my next post. (You won't want to miss this—the cutest thing you'll ever see!)

Since going to South County, RI, is an hour's drive for me, I usually like to combine my effort with other errands and/or adventures, to make as much out of the trip as possible. So on this day, I planned another attempt to get onto the grounds of the Point Judith lighthouse.

This has been a sore point for me this year. I have made repeated attempts for a full 12 months to get onto the lighthouse property (which is technically government property, as it is Coast Guard operated, but they put "Dept of Homeland Security" on the signs now to make it sound more scary).

The lighthouse at Point Judith in Narragansett, Rhode Island

They usually have the gate open so visitors can walk onto the grounds, and lock it at sundown. But after tropical storm Irene hit the area in August of 2011, I was never able to get back onto the property to see how the "beach" there had changed (I say that in quotes because the shoreline by the lighthouse is all rocks—no sand). There had been some rock "sculptures" there and I wondered if the storm had wiped them out. For more background info, refer to my post from a couple of summers ago, "A True Happy Place."

After Irene blew through, they had the whole area closed for construction, which I guess was a coincidence and nothing to do with the storm. I couldn't get through the fence whenever I drove there.

This past January, I drove by and the construction was worse than ever. I went again in May, well before Memorial Day weekend, and the fence was still locked. I returned again at the beginning of August, and found the fence open, but a wedding was taking place by the lighthouse and there was a sign up, asking the public to respect the privacy of the wedding couple. I felt like the Universe was conspiring to keep me away from the one place in that area where I feel like my soul cannot be denied.

So this weekend, I had no idea what I would find. Would the gate, for some reason, be closed now that it's after Labor Day? Even though it usually isn't?

A great feeling of relief came over me when I drove down Ocean Road and saw people lingering around the lighthouse. And cars—more cars than I have ever seen there—were parked all the way up the road.

The reason? Surf's up!

Point Judith is known as a surfing hotspot, but what I didn't realize is that the wave action created by tropical storm Leslie—even as far out to sea as it was—combined itself with high tide Sunday afternoon...and...well, as you'll see...word got out.

I hurried over the hump of lawn and headed down to the "beach" to see how the landscape had changed. And I got the surprise of my life.

Cairns.

Everywhere.

Somebody...or some bodies...over whatever time period since a year ago August, had created this:

(click on photos for larger views)

Now it's unfortunate that I cannot put a panoramic, up-close viewfinder in this blog, because it's impossible to show how extensive and beautiful it was.

Was the Universe making my heart ache this past year so that I could be greeted with a giant, joyful surprise such as this? I mean, whose idea was it? Have people been feeling the love and adding to the display over the past months, or did just a few folks endeavor to create this all by themselves as a project? I guess I'll never know.

Surf's up at Point Judith, Rhode Island

I counted enough surfers out around the entire Point that it would be accurate to say there were at least 50 of them riding the most excellent waves out there (plus two men riding...er...spinning, I mean...in sea kayaks...not sure if that was on purpose). Sunday at Point Judith is the only time I've seen that many surfers getting such great wave action there.

People had come with their tripods to take photos of their buddies surfing, or for whatever other reason. 

Spectators who don't surf just came to watch, as the clouds from earlier in the day gave way to very warm, late-afternoon sunshine in the dry September air. 

It's addictive to try to get the best photo, or the best video of somebody getting a good ride on the biggest wave.

I must have been there watching for 45 minutes.

It may not be the North Shore of Oahu here, but for these guys (and gals) a day like this comes maybe once or twice a year.

What surprises have you found on your adventures this year?

If you'd like to know more about Point Judith, my Beach eGuide is available at the Beach Bath and Trash website.