The Living Beach – August 1, 2017

Beaches are indeed like living creatures: they grow, they die, they feed, they starve, they respond to stress,
they adapt to change. They are among the most mysterious, alluring and
implacable features in our environment.

Excerpt from The Living Beach

What a difference a year makes! Or maybe not so much…. it’s now exactly one year since I started doing monthly comparisons of the changes at our local beach. Although the beach itself changes from day to day, the cycle from season to season is the same. Lots of rocks in the winter and spring after the sand washes away, and then the sand comes back to shore in the summer and fall. Walking on the beach now, you’d never guess that there are so many rocks below your feet covered by I have no idea how many –illions of grains of sand!

For one last time, here’s the beach at low tide today….

And here’s a three-way comparison – July 1st, today, and August 1st one year ago…

And just to see how the beach changes in six months, here’s the beach on March 1st…

I have no idea why the sand comes to shore and then gets washed away and then comes back to shore and then gets washed away again year after year. Mother Nature is mysterious that way :-) But it certainly makes the beach a fascinating and ever-changing place – guess that’s why Silver Donald Cameron calls it The Living Beach :-)

The Living Beach – July 1, 2017

We had a cool and grey Canada Day here, but it was a fun day nonetheless. We started the celebration with our friends Barb & Avy’s lovely beach wedding – I lost track of how many lobster sliders and cookies I ate! Sooooooo good!  And ended the day with some awesome fireworks.

And it’s also time to celebrate the living beach :-) It’s been interesting to see how the beach has changed (or not changed) over the last 11 months. One thing is for sure – there are a lot more rocks on the beach this year than there were at this same time the last two years. The last two years, I could ride my bike from one end of the beach to the parking lot. This year, there are still far too many rocks blocking the way. But there’s definitely a lot more sand on the beach now then there was a month ago.

And looking back at the beach one month ago compared to today… a big difference!

This is the same rock in March and in June – it shrank!

What will the next month bring? Hopefully lots more sand!

The Living Beach – June 1, 2017

Whoops, a few days late with my monthly beach update. I was expecting there to be more sand by now, but not so much….

On the positive side, at least there’s some sand coming back to this part of the beach below the cliff…

Comparison of the beach at the beginning of May (top) and beginning of June (bottom).

Hmmmm… there might actually be more rocks now! I hope the sand comes back soon, I miss walking the beach from end to end. But what Mother Nature does is out of my control!

The Living Beach – May 1, 2017

It’s May 1st, so that means time to see how the beach has changed over the past month. And, well, it really hasn’t changed very much! In some places, there’s a lot of sand washing back up onto the beach…

But there are still lots of rocks…

In fact, looking back at the pictures from April, I think there are actually more rocks on the beach in some places! April on the top, May on the bottom…

Hard to believe that by the end of the summer, this big rock will disappear under the sand!

The Living Beach – April 1, 2017

Sometimes in the waves we find our true direction

It’s time to check in on how the beach has changed over the last month. And, well, it’s still pretty much the same – rocks. LOTS of rocks! It’s hard to believe that all these rocks will be buried under sand in a few months….

Even these big rocks – the largest one is almost as tall as me – will disappear completely.

Rocks, rocks, everywhere rocks! (Butt photo bomb by Jackson).

Comparing March 1st and April 1st…

Come on summer and sand!

The Living Beach – March 1, 2017

Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

One thing that you can count on is that the beach will be different each and every day. Sometimes the changes are small, sometimes the changes are big. The snowstorms we had a couple of weeks ago had a big impact – the beach is way rockier now than it was a month ago.

Can you believe this rock was completely covered by sand six months ago?!

So were these ones…

Let’s compare September 1st and March 1st… all of the pictures were taken at low tide.

Where did all the sand go?!