A Driftwood Search...

Well, since I worked on the piece of wood shown in a previous post, I needed to find a 'base' that would keep the 'dragonbird' upright to sit on a shelf or table.   The beaches were closed last week to vehicle traffic, and I didn't want to climb the sand barricades, so I waited until our local news told us the beaches were open again [closed because of the threat of Hurricane Laura].  I, of course, wanted to walk and at least get a 3 mile walk in before the heat index made it unbearable.  I left before sunrise, arrived at the beach as the sun came up and when I parked to get out and walk and look for a piece of driftwood, a big tanker ship was going out to sea.  Of course, that, hopefully, meant that the dolphins were bidding the crew a safe journey.  I walked up to the jetty hurriedly to see if I could spot any action....

 

I watched for several minutes, until it got near the end of the channel to turn and go out into the Gulf. The jetty was crowded with fishermen at this hour, which didn't come as any surprise! 

Magee Beach was pretty well cleaned up of debris from the storm; hardly any wood was seen. There were plenty of shells; whole and broken bits, all over the shoreline. I continued walking along and finally came up on a very large piece of driftwood that I thought may be a good piece. Instead of carrying it while I continued to walk, I marked the spot so when I did my about face to return to the car, I would know where to pick it up and carry it the short distance back. Beach marker "J"! I saw many very small and whole sand dollars this morning! They even had the 'tentacles' attached, and still a purplish-brown, so they washed ashore very recently [probably at high tide just hours ago] and not long dead. They are supposed to be a good luck piece if whole.  I spotted 17 of them.  Plus two nice, whole, sundial shells and one whole saw-toothed pen shell [as fragile as the sand dollar and finding one in one piece is nearly miraculous!] While I walked this is what I saw. The piece of rusty iron [photo below] from most likely the oil rigs out at sea that washed ashore, reminded me of a chicken drumstick...

That was my morning on the beach. When I got back to the car and loaded the piece of driftwood into the trunk, a barge was being towed down the channel. I took pictures...

I then backed out of the parking spot, drove over the beach to the access road, and left to drive to a birding hotspot in the village and then head home.

In the news...I have a question pertaining to the riots and maybe you agree:   "how does it empower black lives when the same are destroying their own livelihoods and businesses?   Can they not see this, what they're thinking/doing"? addendum: And, I don't post my opinions for the sake of arguments...I will delete comments if I have to. If you have an opinion, publish it on your OWN blog!