Beach Walk After Hurricane Irene, Part 1 - Sunday - August 28, 2011

Sorry this is a week late ;o((

Actually, it is already Sept 6th and this is the third try at posting this blog…hope it works!!

WARNING this post is PHOTO INTENSIVE!!

Click on any photo to enlarge it

Nancy here:  Bill and I decided to skip our usual Sunday morning bike ride today.  Instead, we wanted to walk the beach at Huntington Beach State Park and see what Hurricane Irene had done there.

We arrived at the State Park about 7am and drove to the

 north beach access.Boardwalk to the beach…

We were almost to the beach when we saw these Pelicans

 skimming along the surf…

The sun was already up, but the light clouds made it a perfect time for beach combing and taking photos…

This group of shells was the first thing we saw…

It looked like Hurricane Irene had dumped a bag of shells for us to find!!

Thanks, Irene :o))

However, this was just the beginning of many treasures

she had left for us!! 

Next came a Sea Urchin which still had its spikes!!

How about this colorful seaweed ?!?!

Irene’s rough surf had left the beach covered with

many different egg casings.

The photo above is the egg casing of a Skate.  Some people call it a “Mermaid’s Purse.”

What a GREAT name!!

The photo below is from the internet.  We did not see this on the beach.  However, this is a Skate which could have come out of the

Mermaid’s Purse ;o))

Next we found a Horse Conch egg casing.  The Horse Conch is the State Shell of Florida, but has a range as far north as North Carolina.Each egg casing holds hundreds of Horse Conchs, so you would think we could find one… Nope, not a one!!

But here is an internet photo of a Horse Conch Shell.

Everywhere you walked you could find these strings of disks. 

They almost looked like necklaces. These are Welk egg casings.

You guessed it, these photos of Welk Shells are from the internet as well ;o))   It is hard to imagine that these big shells start out in those tiny little disks.  Actually, there are several shells in each disk!!

The next 2 photos are UEC – Unidentified Egg Casings.Please leave a comment if you know what they are!!

We found thousands of empty clam shells all over the beach.  I believe the birds have had a feast !

However, when the surf came in, we would see this little fountains of water.Obviously, the birds did not get all the clams :o))

The sunlight on this Rough Pen Shell made it look like it had been dipped in GOLD!!

While we were lucky that Hurricane Irene was a minimal hurricane, she was strong enough to change the landscape of Huntington Beach….Much of the Sand Dunes were breached and destroyed…

In the photo below, you can see how the sand was washed over the Salt Marsh…

Below, I am standing on the sandy salt marsh looking out toward the jetty…the sand dune is missing :o((

In this next photo, Bill is standing where the sand dune should be…

As we continued our walk down the beach, we saw these tracks everywhere.Can you guess what they are ?!?!?

Let’s pan out a little… Does this help??

OK, right in the middle of the picture… See it ??

SEE  IT  NOW ???Yes, these little Sand Crabs were everywhere rebuilding their burrows and tunnels.  However, it was so difficult to get a photo of one as they would dive in their burrows if you got anywhere close!!

However, this guy was one tough Sand Crab!!He just held his ground no matter how close I got ;o))

In many place, while the sand dunes were still there, they were extremely unstable.

The last treasure we found before we reach the jetty was a huge horseshoe crab shell.

Well, we have finally reach the jetty.

We will continue our beach walk in Part 2 !!!

Hope you will come along :o))