The view of our beach from the top of the stairs, street-level. |
The last time I was down there was on Easter. I took all our Easter guests down there to walk off our Easter ham and other goodies. It was a beautiful day then too. Today, like on that day, it was low tide.
Our beach is not a very big one and constantly subject to erosion. I have the feeling that our property owner's association fee for using the beach in the summer (quite steep--but I find it hard not to cave in and scrape up the dough when the beach in question is 100 yards from my front door) entails adding sand to the beach in time for summer beach-going.
Low tide. |
Today the beach seemed very small, even at low tide. The two yards of beach leading up to the water were completely paved with stones and various other oceanic debris. Because we are on the Long Island Sound side of the island (north shore as opposed to south shore), the water is like the water in a bay: very calm and flat. There are rarely any waves. Today's were minuscule.
As a consequence, in addition to the many-colored stones, perfectly polished from rolling in the deep, sharp-edged shells, and sea-weed that peppered the shoreline, it was also easy to distinguish a variety of other Sound debris. Namely, concrete blocks, bricks, often still mortared together, as well as bizarre rusted metal tubes, pipes, and junk of ambiguous origin. One time there was a whole metal door of some sort that had washed ashore.
Asphalt square; concrete block, and some bricks at the far right. |
No idea what this is--a rudder that fell off a boat? A piece of boat? |
This looks almost like one of those early headpieces for underwater suits. Creepy. |
Stuck in the sand. No idea what this is. |
(Makes me think I should get my tetanus shot renewed. And that I could make a calendar with pictures of bizarre Long Island debris and sell it on Etsy.)
Of course, I hate this industrial litter. It's vile. Disgusting. Poisonous. But it's also fascinating, and maybe a little inspiring. They could be remnants of a lost underwater civilization. A litterbug Atlantis. They could be space trash that has fallen into the ocean and washed up on our shores. Maybe these elements rust so quickly because they are made of Terbinium and thus only adapted to the atmosphere of Mars.
Still, I do hope all that junk is gone by the time swimming weather arrives.
Huzzah for sunshine at 7pm! |
Beautiful. And I kind of like beach debris. Some day there will be a message of some kind, in an old bottle. It will be awesome.
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