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BEACH WALK... Late afternoon walk yesterday.....        |
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There's been big storms at the same time as the Winter super high tides, causing more driftwood than usual...
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Lulu, I have been waiting with great anticipation for just this blog from you. I knew the nicer weather would draw you out for walking and taking pictures of your surroundings and the water's edge. Since I can't be there in person, the pictures are the next best thing. Be a prism, spreading God's light and love, not a mirror reflecting the world's hatred.
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Beautiful place and nice pictures. Are they cutting down trees in that area?   Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.(Khalil Gibran)
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It is amazing how much drift wood comes to the shore. We are having a lot of wind today and lots of whitecaps on the water. What beach were you walking on?
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The beach is a mile from my house......I've never seen so much driftwood before......at first we thought It came from Bute Inlet because there was a huge landslide there in the Fall.......the side of a forested mountain slid into the sea.....But then it became obvious that all the driftwood is old....There is no roots or branches....and it's all worn and rounded at both ends.......It's been kicking around for years....The storms haven't been more frequent or worse than most years, the super high Winter tides weren't any higher than other years......The only thing we can think of is that the big storms and the highest tides of the year co-ordinated and overlapped in a unique way. This area I live in is an Archipelago called the Salish Sea......The ocean currents here are some of the strongest in the World.....A huge volume of water has to move between the islands......The highest tides here are 15 feet, but that increases as you go North . Where I grew up in Prince Rupert and Haida Gwaii, the biggest tides are 24 feet...... When you get up to Alaska....all those islands around the Panhandle, the tides are over 30 feet and there are huge standing waves in the passes at the top of the tide. I lived right on a tidal pass near here for many years......The . movement of the tide becomes like a slow heart beat. The water rushes like a river in one direction and then reverses direction .....There are "Tide Tables".....You buy the booklet every year.....most coastal newspapers print the tables every day...Of course now you can Google it........It's very thrilling to live in the midst of that power when you are dependent on boat travel every day....
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Lulu, I have been waiting with great anticipation for just this blog from you. I knew the nicer weather would draw you out for walking and taking pictures of your surroundings and the water's edge. Since I can't be there in person, the pictures are the next best thing.
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I know right!?
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I like the second photo best, just something about it that appeals to me. I don't think I have ever seen so much driftwood in one place.  Great photos.
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The bigger logs often have been branded.....Those would be escapees from from a timber company...You can only legally take those with a beach-combing license and sell it back to the company that lost it......and then there are the log-rustlers who saw off the end of a branded log.....liable to big fine. To beach-comb a large log, you wait for it to float and hook it to your boat and pull it off the beach.......I've done a lot of that in my life...... The smaller stuff that you can carry, you cart to your boat or to your vehicle if the beach is close to a road.....Chain sawing is allowed on more remote beaches. I've done a lot of beach-combing.....I beach-combed a lot of Red Cedar, for instance, that I split into hakes for a roof......I have a beautiful Red Cedar coffee-table with natural edges.....its 3 inches thick.....made out of a slab from beach-combed wood. I have an interesting chunk of Yellow Cedar on my deck right now that I have plan for.......Beach-combed wood is sometimes irredeemably split on the inside from being smashed onto rocks by wave-action and only experience can teach you how to make that distinction on the spot......
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There are some very talented driftwood sculptors..
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