Contrasting Days

Thursday it was raining on and off, and I was on and off about going, all the way on the bus and up until I stepped on the beach. It was raining. I was sure it was about to stop but heavy downpours kept happening. When I finally got on the beach it started hailing but the raincloud was long and narrow and looked like it was on its last legs so I decided to stay. I'm glad I did because it almost immediately cleared up and the cloud show was amazing. I also feel more useful cleaning up after a storm because I get to pick stuff out of the surf that would otherwise get washed back. Big sheet of shredded black plastic, the usual exploded pens, candy wrappers, plastic bags, etc. I also get to walk by the water without feeling that I should be farther up the beach where more trash is. I know it's only a virtual drop in the ocean but maybe that drop saves a sea turtle or two.

This is as much about getting to know Ocean Beach as picking up trash, however. Saw a lot of kelp washed ashore after the storm, kinds I've read about but not seen yet, like palm kelp which looks like minature palm trees, and a long feathery-rubbery strands. Boa kelp? As soon as it cleared up more people (and dogs) started coming out. Waiting for the chance after the storm.

Saturday I got there about 7:30 a.m. or so. Sunny and already warm. Low tide with lots of patches of beach between water. Sand dollars scattered all over.

The embarassing part. I came upon what I thought was a stranded seal, on the beach near the water. I walked up maybe 100 feet from it and it didn't move, it just looked at me. I didn't know what to do. I figured the Marine Mammal Center wouldn't be open yet, so I walked/ran about a half hour to the Beach Chalet where I figured I might find a Park Police person or two, all the while worrying about the animal in what was starting to be a warm day. I did find some park people getting ready to empty trash cans who referred me to the Marine Mammal Center. I called and they do have a 24 hour line. It's in my cell phone now. The person who answered was nice and he asked me a few questions. I walked back and there was no trace of the "seal". I read a flyer later and it was probably fine. I thought it wasn't because it let me get so close without disappearing into the surf, but I now think it was perfectly fine and that it wasn't a seal at all but a Stellar Sea Lion. Now I wish I had known so I could've enjoyed seeing a marine mammal up close.

One point of writing this: if you see a possibly stranded marine mammal, call the Marine Mammal Center at (415) 289-7325. This is assuming you're in the SF Bay area. Don't touch the animal or try to push it back in (I assume this is self-evident but just in case). Whales are the animals most likely to be stranded but the person you talk to will know what to ask you. Do know where you are so you can tell them (obvious but I had to go to the street to see where I was).

I'm finally keeping my promise to make the beach alive to you, species by species. Because I promised, I'm starting with sand dollars. I'm starting with these because I've noticed that a lot of people look at sand dollar skeletons and see a decoration, not the remains of an animal. Sand dollars are sea urchins who adapted to a life burrowed in the sand by becoming flat. The hard white shell is the skeleton. Sand dollars start out as eggs (the idea of an adult sand dollar laying eggs boggles the mind), then swimming larvae, part of the microscopic part of the ocean food chain known as plankton. As larvae they can clone themselves if necessary. When the larvae become adults they live around the low-tide line, either buried in the sand or sticking out of it sideways. They can creep a little and bury themselves when the need (or mood?) arises. In fact, the flower patterns actually enable locomotion, when they're alive. When they're alive, they're dark colors with hairy cilia covering their body. They eat by filtering microscopic organisms out of the seawater, and (unwillingly) provide food for sea stars, flounder, cod and other botton-feeding fish.

I get updates from the Audobon Society about the world-changing Gulf oil crime, because I signed up to be a volunteer if needed. They're nowhere near needing an out-of-shape volunteer with no skills who doesn't live in the area but they send out updates occasionally. An important part of their advice to potential volunteers not in the area are to take care of the wild places where you are. We need to do that, in so many local and global ways, starting with a hard look at ALL of our consumer habits. Starting now. Starting here, where ever here is. I am doing this. And I can do better. And I'm working on it.

Until next time...

A month later

It's been a while since my last blog. I've been still going to Ocean Beach to clean up a couple times a week, but was thrown a little by Life, particularly my Census job. Setting my own hours seems like it would leave me more time to beachandblog but between our morning meetings and our late afternoon/early evening window to do the work, and my talent for making 25 actual hours into more like 45, well you get the idea.

I was thinking about going early this morning but now I'm glad I didn't. A little while ago I read online that a couple got killed in a boating accident this weekend, and the man washed up on Ocean Beach this morning.

So much has happened this month. The Gulf oil spill is so vast, in so many senses, that I don't feel like anything I can say, at least right now, would add to what's been said, thought, or felt. One thing I will say is that I signed up with the Audobon Society to volunteer if I'm needed. So far they don't need unskilled people not from the area but they send us emails from time to time. The last one had some good advice. The birds at the site, a lot of them migrate. What we can do, one thing, is to protect habitat where we are.

So today I'll keep it local and talk about what I did on the day after Earth Day, while the oil was escaping into the Gulf but before most of us, anyone reading this, knew what was happening. I've been spending so much time on the beach watching and wondering that I decided to pay the money to go to the Aquarium by the Bay at Fisherman's Wharf. I was standing in line for a ticket when someone asked me if I were alone, and when I responded affirmatively, gave me a free ticket. I think he was holding it for someone who never showed up. At first I didn't understand, so I hope he knew how much I appreciated it.

I really wanted to see this aquarium because it focuses on the Bay. It has a few other exhibits but their jewel is a building-length tunnel of animals that live in the Bay. I stayed there a long time, watching shellfish and scaled fish, trying to learn who they were and what relation they had to each other. It is somewhat artificial in that they feed the animals well enough so that the predator/prey relationships that drive the animals in the wild don't exist. Although it's like a living museum more than a slice of life it gave me a picture of what it looks like under the water when I'm on the beach looking west, something I didn't have before. The other part of the exhibit I loved was the jellyfish, oh the jellyfish. They were in a ceiling-to-floor column and were mersemizing. It was hard to pull away.

There was also information on how much garbage goes into the Bay and what it does. Depressing and inspiring. I took notes but the particulars aren't with me at the moment but I'll post them. Really. Earlier in the spring they had a free week for residents and I have a feeling it's probably annual.

On the beach itself, the shorebirds are gone off to places like the Arctic to make more baby shorebirds. I'm understanding what I'm seeing more now and even with the shorebirds gone this included, so far, an ochre sea star early in the morning, right at the wave end of low tide, a raven on a sand dune about a foot from me, the same day a crow who looked directly at me, pecked at a piece of rope, and flew away. I felt like s/he was telling me about something to pick up. I don't pick up shells and rocks to take home but I made an exception for a dogwinkle turned into a rock.

Now that I'm back to posting again, I will post twice a week, with more about my attempts to live more in harmony. I do work next week for a couple of weeks, but it's regular hours and when it's done, it's done!

Until then...