The Ocean Giveth
I was spending a Saturday on the porch, hanging with hubby, and just passing the time drinking sparkling water with lime in it - a treat I have been giving myself these days and I love it.
He was lamenting lack of materials to make the art that he wants to make, and I said 'What about using what the ocean giveth?'
The ocean does giveth. It is constantly churning and mixing and depositing things on the shores from unknown places. Sadly, lately, it is a lot of garbage, but don't get me started with the garbage in the oceans. I watched this movie, A Plastic Ocean, and it scared me so much I couldn't watch the whole thing. It is really disturbing how much crap is in our waters. I hope and pray a solution will be found, or a few. But I digress.
We do find things on the beach that we don't consider garbage, and we lovingly bring it home to keep, eventually to use in other ways if we can figure out a way to do so. We find pieces of old pipe. We find pieces of pottery - some not so old, some quite old. All little treasures, some with stories of times past that I would love to hear told.
We find glass - again some not so old (which we throw back, for more churning and mixing), and also some very old glass trying to tell us bits of history. And Rocks. We find those, and yes my hubby, whole family actually, likes rocks. Not just coral, but rocks that are not from here, that are from far away ~ perhaps once on an old ship as ballast stones.
Very rarely, we also find scary sea creatures! This Portugese Man of War (also known as blue bottle, or floating terror!) washed up a few weeks ago, along with another one a little smaller and a little more blue. This meant no snorkeling for a while and gets the award of the only thing we have found that we wish never washed up on our beach.
Oh and let's not forget the wood. Surprisingly lots of wood. I would say driftwood, but sometimes it is drift trees! Like this weekend. Yesterday, full trunks of trees floating in the water, crashing the shore, left one shore. So much of it! Now, we like trees, yes. BUT.
We went for a walk last evening and I said to hubby 'Look! The ocean giveth, it giveth a little too much I think!'
There were 4 full on trunks, at least 3 long pieces of bamboo, a full bamboo tree with its roots still, and sticks galore. For reasons not easily explained, hubby decides these tree trunks and such should not be left to wash up on our little stretch of beach. So, these trees crashing on the sore we do not like so much. Thus the 'fighting with trees in the ocean' bout began.
He was waist deep in the ocean pushing the trunks out to sea, the ocean pushing them back to him, him pushing out again, and on it went. All the while moving little by little down the beach, each trunk moved further down the beach.
My son got into the action, practicing javalin with long bamboo pieces. After the first one, which fell flat about 5 feet in front of him, he said 'those are heavier than you think!'. The next one was longer, but he managed to get it out pretty far.
A good workout for sure, but I stayed on the shore taking pictures and watching. I did not feel like fighting trees in the ocean. I was pretty convinced the trees would win, and I would lose.
Eventually, the trees lost their battle with my boys. They got them down further and further until they were satisfied. Exhausted, but satisfied.
We haven't checked yet today if there are more trees to corall. And I don't think that will be a thing that will happen again soon, though I would not be the least surprised if when we go for our next walk we come back with handfulls of things.
Becasue even after battling trees in the ocean, hubby came back to the porch, before he took his soaking we shorts off right there on the porch, he pulled out of his pocket a piece of glass he found. Not just a piece of glass either, a really, really old piece of glass. And so it continues......
He was lamenting lack of materials to make the art that he wants to make, and I said 'What about using what the ocean giveth?'
The ocean does giveth. It is constantly churning and mixing and depositing things on the shores from unknown places. Sadly, lately, it is a lot of garbage, but don't get me started with the garbage in the oceans. I watched this movie, A Plastic Ocean, and it scared me so much I couldn't watch the whole thing. It is really disturbing how much crap is in our waters. I hope and pray a solution will be found, or a few. But I digress.
We do find things on the beach that we don't consider garbage, and we lovingly bring it home to keep, eventually to use in other ways if we can figure out a way to do so. We find pieces of old pipe. We find pieces of pottery - some not so old, some quite old. All little treasures, some with stories of times past that I would love to hear told.
Very rarely, we also find scary sea creatures! This Portugese Man of War (also known as blue bottle, or floating terror!) washed up a few weeks ago, along with another one a little smaller and a little more blue. This meant no snorkeling for a while and gets the award of the only thing we have found that we wish never washed up on our beach.
Oh and let's not forget the wood. Surprisingly lots of wood. I would say driftwood, but sometimes it is drift trees! Like this weekend. Yesterday, full trunks of trees floating in the water, crashing the shore, left one shore. So much of it! Now, we like trees, yes. BUT.
We went for a walk last evening and I said to hubby 'Look! The ocean giveth, it giveth a little too much I think!'
There were 4 full on trunks, at least 3 long pieces of bamboo, a full bamboo tree with its roots still, and sticks galore. For reasons not easily explained, hubby decides these tree trunks and such should not be left to wash up on our little stretch of beach. So, these trees crashing on the sore we do not like so much. Thus the 'fighting with trees in the ocean' bout began.
He was waist deep in the ocean pushing the trunks out to sea, the ocean pushing them back to him, him pushing out again, and on it went. All the while moving little by little down the beach, each trunk moved further down the beach.
My son got into the action, practicing javalin with long bamboo pieces. After the first one, which fell flat about 5 feet in front of him, he said 'those are heavier than you think!'. The next one was longer, but he managed to get it out pretty far.
A good workout for sure, but I stayed on the shore taking pictures and watching. I did not feel like fighting trees in the ocean. I was pretty convinced the trees would win, and I would lose.
Eventually, the trees lost their battle with my boys. They got them down further and further until they were satisfied. Exhausted, but satisfied.
We haven't checked yet today if there are more trees to corall. And I don't think that will be a thing that will happen again soon, though I would not be the least surprised if when we go for our next walk we come back with handfulls of things.
Becasue even after battling trees in the ocean, hubby came back to the porch, before he took his soaking we shorts off right there on the porch, he pulled out of his pocket a piece of glass he found. Not just a piece of glass either, a really, really old piece of glass. And so it continues......
Love this post. Always loved finding treasures from the sea.
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