| Beach Wrack for Beachcombers |
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| November 18, 2007 |
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So, what do you do for fun at the beach? Listen to the radio? Read a book? Play Frisbee? Swim? Skimboard? Take long walks and look at all the people? Look for shells? Have you ever tried “beachcombing?”
Does a cloudy day interfere with your day at the beach? Well, a lot of people go to the beach just to see what has washed up with the tide. They look for interesting objects to identify and marvel over. This is called beachcombing, and doesn't require a sunny day, or even a warm day.
You'll see them strolling along the high tide line, sometimes carrying a mesh bag or a bucket, stooping over here and there to examine something on the beach. At first, you might mistake them for shell collectors. But no, they are interested in much more than just shells. The beach is the final resting place for all kinds of sea creatures, for seeds from far off lands, and for objects that fell from cargo ships, and even pieces of ships that may have lost the battle with foul weather.
The most productive place to look for interesting things on the beach is in the “beach wrack.” This is the line of debris that rests on the beach at the highest reach of the surging waves. The most prominent feature of the sea wrack is usually clumps of algae, or “seaweed.”
Lots of people think that algae is just stinky stuff, but really it is quite interesting. There are many types of algae that wash up, each with a different form and shape of leaf and stem. Take a close look and see how many different types of algae you can identify (or challenge your kids to do it). Algae could be pink, green, red, brown, white, or various combinations of colors. It doesn't stink when it's fresh, but laying in the sun for hours does cause it to smell a bit.
What's great about the algae on the beach is that it traps and holds all kinds of things and is a great hiding place for tiny creatures that birds and crabs like to eat.
You might find pretty bird feathers stuck in the algae, or shells that have become entangled. Don't be afraid to poke around in the beach wrack to see what you can discover.
All kinds of seeds from tropical plants wind up in the beach wrack. Some seeds can float in the sea currents for thousands of miles before washing up on a beach somewhere. These are called “sea beans” and there are people around the world who collect and identify the types of sea beans they find. There is even a Seabean Symposium every year for collectors to share information. One of the most striking seeds to wash up on Florida beaches is the red mangrove seed. It looks sort of like a long curved cigar (at least to a kid, or an adult with a child-like imagination). If you'd like to learn more about sea beans, visit www.seabean.com.
You'll also find various colored sea grasses, sea whips, sea pork, rocks with fossils, and on some beaches you'll find fossilized sharks teeth (Venice, Florida beaches). Of course you'll often find the carcasses of various types of expired marine life, mostly fish. This is a great opportunity to study creatures up close that you might otherwise never see. Jellyfish wash up frequently and are quite a curiosity. Look, but don't touch, is the rule with jellies. Crab shells and catfish spines, egg cases of skates and whelks, the list is endless. I once found a very interesting smoking pipe made out of clay that had washed up on Caspersen Beach. I marveled for hours over where that might have come from and how long it had been in the Gulf of Mexico.
If you are interested in learning more about nature on the beach, I highly recommend a book recently published by the Pineapple Press in Sarasota. It is called “Florida's Living Beaches, A Guide for the Curious Beachcomber” by authors Blair and Dawn Witherington. It is a beautiful full-color book and is quite comprehensive.
I also highly recommend any book by the late Cathy Katz. In particular, I like her book “The Nature of Florida's Beaches. Cathy illustrated her books with fantastic pen and ink drawings and presents the information in an entertaining way. This is a great book to buy for your kids before bringing them to Florida for a beach vacation. Kids love finding stuff in the beach wrack and trying to figure out what it is.
So go ahead, take a walk and poke around in the beach wrack. And don't forget to carry a bucket. Surely you'll find something you'll want to bring back for further study.
And keep in mind that you'll find that more has washed up on the beach after a storm with high surf, and after unusually high tides, and of course being the first one on the beach in the morning pays off.
See you at the beach! |
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| Beach wrack is the assortment of marine life, seaweed, and objects that have washed up on the beach. |
| Credit: David McRee, VISIT FLORIDA Beaches Expert |
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