I love walking along the ocean.
In the winter,
if it is above 20 degrees F, at the house,
and if the wind is not blowing,
I like to go for a beach walk.
On Saturday, the 7th, I checked the tide-
it would be low in the early afternoon.
As that is usually the warmest part of the day,
I headed down to Pemaquid beach around 1 pm.
The sky was over-cast,
this was a monochromatic scene.
Whenever I walk the beach there seems to be a
theme that emerges.
Today, for me,
the walk was about patterns.
Here the curve of the dunes,
bordered with a curve of snow,
echoed the curve of sand and water.
The tides had been super high and super low during the last week…
with a lot of surge and wind.
Walking toward the far end,
there was a stretch of the beach covered in fairly large rocks,
that had been moved up the sand by the tide.
Clumps of seaweed formed a pattern
in the lea of the rocks at the end of the beach.
This was unusual-
usually it is piled in tall banks
at the other end of the beach.
A pattern similar to that of the seaweed was a
nearby grouping of small rocks.
Walking back the other way,
one sees how covered with rocks one part of the beach is.
It was in contrast to the rest of the beach
had been swept nearly clean.
With normal tides there are the small vignettes of
flotsam and jetsam that I love to see.
But, today, there were few.
This was piece of seaweed stood out,
it was one of the few things with color that I saw!
There was an occassional shell-
here two empty periwinkle shells sit amongst small rocks.
Another small piece of weed had been gently
deposited on the sand.
Further along,
where there was more grit,
was a still life of stones, seaweeds, and coralline.
I love how the seeweeds frame the coralline!
Though not colorful,
even small pieces of weed offer moments of grace
against the sand.
Some sand patterns are dramatic!
After two and a half laps,
it was time to leave.
As I take a last look
a bit of sun illuminated the islands
at the entrance to the bay.
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