The Beach

One of the marvelous things about the Atlantic beaches are their marvelous sunrises. It is an awesome site to see the sun spill forth over the horizon.

On this day Sammy was not feeling really super, so Grandma and Grandpa headed to the beach. We wanted to bring him some treasures of the sea.

Grandma was ready and we were off to collect marine critters.

The beach at Hilton Head is clean and at this time of the year uncrowded. The beach at low tide is quite an expanse.

Of course, the animal life interested us with cormorants, pelicans, and even porpoises swimming off shore. However, we needed to find bits of nature that can be collected and shown to the little man upon our return.

Grandpa soon discovered a natural sponge. (Not the Dupont variety!)

Now things started getting more interesting. How about the sea cucumber below? These relatives to the starfish are quite the odd creatures. They possess Cuverian organs in their cloacca and are able to spray "silly string" all over their predators.

Grandma found a mermaids purse, which is the egg case of a skate or other cartilage fishes (rays, sharks).

Hurray, another prize! This crab was not alive, but certianly made an interesting find to show Sammy.

We took our new-found treasures back to the house to show Mr. Sam! For some reason he was not real interested in touching our crab friend!