Luckily, there have been some dry periods and even some "sun breaks". Last week I lead my first Beachwatchers beach monitor, and we managed not to get rained on. We combed the beach just below downtown Langley, and saw:
Pits in the sand where the gray whales have fed,
grey whale pits
and the ghost shrimp that they eat.
and the ghost shrimp that they eat.
Big, scary looking, cool polychaete worms, some nearly a foot long.("sometimes called "goddess worms").
Pretty little chocolate-brown sea slugs with gold spots.
Har to tell from the picture, but this guy is maybe an inch long.
Har to tell from the picture, but this guy is maybe an inch long. Lots of shore crabs (hemigrapsus oregonensis).
And of course, Limpets, mussels, barnacles, clams.
Beach monitoring also involves "profiling" the slope of the beach, which is what we're doing above. The beaches around here vary an amazing amount from year to year. According to our measurements, this beach has filled in about 4 feet since last year. But this is right in the middle of the 10 year's worth of data we have... 500 feet out from the shoreline, the drop has varied from 6 feet to 13 feet over the years.
The movement of the sand really amazes me. At Maxwelton, just a few miles from my house, there's a boat launch where I've launched my kayak many times. Over the past several years, a sand spit has been growing near the boat launch, but last summer the launch was still usable. This year, not so much. Instead of water at the end of the launch, there's now a 5-foot sand dune!
Note: All photos in this post were taken by Mary Jo Adams.
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