Beach Findings Abound after the Storms!

We’ve had winds over 40 mph and waves over 23 feet  - the perfect combo for beach combing!  Here are our Cool Finds – waiting discovery of identification on the beach in Lincoln City, Oregon.

(at low tide in safe areas with one eye on the water at all times)

More Japanese Floats

A plant we’ve never seen. HUGE thorns, NOT scotch Bloom.
Update – Found it!
Gorse – rhymes with Curse – for good cause – read more, planted by a man in Bandon Oregon – highly flammable!

Thousands of these on the beach on Monday at SW11th, this was a tiny one – they were all sizes - not sure what they are, I remember them from my youth, not sure where to start on identification. 

Update – Found it!

Velella velella

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Cnidariaj Subphylum: Medusozoab Class: Hydrozoa

Order: Anthomedusae Family: Porpitidae Genus: Velella Species: V. velella Binomial name

Velella velella
(Linnaeus, 1758)

We were asked to identify this for a friend, Found it in the Handbook of Nature Study – Field Horse Tails.

 Beautiful walk on the beach this evening!

Japanese Floats

Nathan found a pile of floats on the beach this evening – I was talking to a friend while walking and gave him the mom Ya Ya answer to his excitement -

When we got home – he showed me – and I felt kinda bad that we didn’t take the time on the beach to be excited.

He brought home four of them – even though they are plastic floats and not glass floats – they are still pretty cool!

We scrubbed them, and found the print – They were coated on half of the side with seawead and growth, the opposite side is faded.
Very Cool.

Our Walk Today

Here are the pics from our most amazing walks today!  We have been on the hunt for Outdoor Nature Challenge – Mammals, Bulbs, Flowers and Spring Newness. I think we found it!

Dinosaurs Found with Alligators

I have been sick for a week – a horrid chest cold – the kind that you are praying  more to die than to heal in the middle of it - - - so the blogs and pics have slowed.  However, life does not stop when mamma does – The dog still needs walked! We went out to Road’s End, I hunkered down clinging to a piece of driftwood log with one hand and a cup of hot lime & honey tea in the other –

When Jon comes up with his big find  -A Dinosaur.   I busied myself taking pictures when he started screaming that he had now found an Alligator.  I was feeling sorry for the poor kid that forgot his little toys on the beach, when he came up to me with an actual lizard! Imagine my surprise! The closest thing we could come up with is an  Oregon Alligator Lizard. The boys had fun checking him out, then put him back.  Glad I had my cell phone camera! 

 

 

My lil Rock Hounds    I was still having fun with my Dinosaur. Grey Belly   Here’s Lookin Atcha!

Agate Walking

 This system was pretty amazing. Sort of looked like a Waterspout when we driving down to Nelscott at SW 35th. By the time we hit the beach it had spread a bit in width and lifted from the water.
The system brought hail to the beach, Lots of hail to the neighboring hills.
  
Here is the view at the same moment facing north.
Amazing Cloud Systems!

An Agate Lovin’ Family Portrait. :)

Looked like I was climbing a Mountain. :)
Really just the rocks by the Inn at Spanish Head.
       
We left to do a bit of grocery shopping – and came out to this sunset. WOW!   

Here’s a little photo of some of our loot from this afternoon – At Nelscott, 2 hours after low tide. :) I have not posted a picture of our agates in quite a while – a couple of people asked – so here ya go!

Tsunami Day Warnings and Learning

Upon my morning ritual of coffee and Facebook – I quickly learned that we were under an advisement to stay behind the Tsunami warning lines for our Central Oregon Coastal town.

The day progressed with all of our cell phones beeping with excitement. The boys have some crazy ring tone for theirs, mine announces “Message Received”, and hubby’s chirps. Local and faraway friends sending us messages not to go to the beach.

So we joined the masses by turning on the TV, hunkering down for the day, waiting to discover how the waves would progress as they moved up the coast as a result from the earthquake in Chili.

• Note: I had a friend from Southern Oregon call and say that THIS TIME the local law enforcement was serious. They had been asked to leave the beach, patrols were out in huge numbers to get the citizens up to higher ground.  The expected wave from the pressure of the tsunami was to be between 1 and 3 feet. Which is humorous for us winter weather advisory watchers clambering to the beach to watch the 25-30 foot swells several times during the winter.

We have been studying tides, waves, swells, the pull of the ocean from magnetic, the moon phases, and the sun.  - So today we enjoyed a 6 or so hour long intense listening study from the weather channel, CNN, books on hand – Interesting Impromptu Study!

After it was pretty evident that the coast lines were not going to get hit by a huge surge and wave from the observations of Hawaii and southern coasts of North America – and after the time of the warning – we headed out to the local beach.

• One thing that we were interested in – was to see what type of different debris might wash up.  The reports talked of this “murky water” that was coming ashore due to the strong undercurrent generated by the earthquake moving along the ocean bottom, stirring up mud and debris.  So far – after several walks on the beach, our high tide line debris looks the same as pre-earthquake.

Apparently, we weren’t the only warning breakers, because the beaches had hundreds of people on them at 5:30 (warning was for 2pm).  It was a negative low tide – so there would have to have been a 300 foot plus surge to even hit the  rocks at the edge of the shore line. (Which, by the way, does happen during sneaker waves, even at these low tides, on any normal day.)

It was fun to stop for a photo under the beach closed sign, then join the rest of crazy humanity breaking warnings -  When we walked to the car the banner had been placed in the garbage can, and the boys snagged a few feet of it for a memento. :)

 
Only the most extreme low negative tides, maybe once a month, allow one to walk to the area showing hundreds of Sea Stars.

Walk and a Picnic

We headed out this morning to walk on the beach in the sunshine.  Ya, this Oregon Coast Winter Weather has been a real hardship!

The waves were like beautiful green glass. The clouds to the north and south were pretty intense, even though we were under blue sky.

Jon and his Dog on the beach. :)

After our walk we had a hankering for Fried Chicken, we havn’t had any since we’ve moved here – so a quick trip to the IGA and then to the parking lot at D River Wayside for a picnic.  A few hopeful onlookers joined us.