This week's Wednesday Walk took us to Osborne Bay Park, an off-leash area just a five minute drive from my home. It is a beautiful park of over sixty acres, an old farmstead which still harbours many fruit and ornamental trees. The first section of the park is rolling fields, which is followed by a trail winding through tall trees and bushes, leading down to a wide expanse of pebbly beach just teaming with marine life.
I have had a love affair with the ocean ever since I can remember. Family photos show me playing on the beaches in England as a toddler, and later in the then-small seaside resort town of White Rock where I grew up. In my adult years, I have made a point of exploring isolated stretches of beach every chance I get. The tidal pools teeming with marine life, the soothing rhythm of the waves as they crash on the shore, the sense of wide-open spaces as one gazes at miles of sand and water - fascination, education, relaxation all rolled into one.
Osborne Bay is resplendent in sand dollars and shells of every colour:
Purple Sand Dollar
Golden Sand Dollar
Tidal pool of dollars - riches of a different kind
In the pools, shells and sanddollars and seaweed formed a patchwork quilt for the tiny crabs and other sealife who resided there:
Shells and Sand Dollars
Sand Dollars in Water
Sand Dollars in Seaweed
Small Shells in Seaweed
Evidence of the circle of life is all around:
Crab Starfish on the beach and under rocks add another splash of colour to the already brilliant palette:
Starfish
Starfish under Rock
Higher on the beach, abandoned boathouses and old stairways to nowhere attest to the history of the area:
Old Stairs
Biodiversity, that interdependency of living things, is well represented here. A tree, long ago fallen from the cliff to the beach below, has become a home for the thousands of mussels that cling to its branches:
Mussels cover the branches
I love this shot of the wall-to-wall shells on the beach. It reminds me of one of those very-hard-to-solve jigsaw puzzles I used to love to do (It looks a lot more striking when you click to enlarge it!):
Happy Clammers
Tarben investigates
Sadie and Tarben resting for the climb back up
Charley and Sadie, Osborne Bay Park
Seaweed, shells and sand dollars - a beautiful setting for some friends and their dogs. Life doesn't get any better than this.
6 comments:
Looks like Charley is feeling better? Good deal!
Beautiful post. A similar beach on this side of the border is accessible by 3-mile walk through the rainforest from Lake Ozette, on the Olympic Peninsula.
that is a very pretty beach! I've never seen sand dollars actually on the beach. I spent nearly every summer on the beaches of the Gulf of Mexico in Florida... fond memories: But no sand dollars! ;)
I'm happy to see Charley looking so well!
Great post! Apart from the beautiful shots, it made me realize how little I know about the things see/miss on the beach. I'll be looking with a different eye the next time I go:)
Great pictures Jean. I love the picture of the stairs. You should talk to M about joining the camara club.
Else
I am so amazed at the amount of sea life still left standing!! Is the beach protected from shell and scavager hunters?
A purple starfish!! Oh my lawdy,that is beautiful!!
Stunning photos Jean, your Wednesday walks look absolutely wonderful.
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