Seen too late

On the wide, flat sands of Boundary Bay, residents park their boats helter-skelter, tying them to a variety of home-made anchor points. There is no need for a wharf; some people just wade ashore from a close tie-up, others, anchored farther out, use paddle-boards or small skiffs to reach their boat when the tide is in. The sand is dotted with these contraptions, sometimes a chain attached to something deep in the sand, or an old rope tied to a bucket of cement.

Each of these creates its own mini-environment, catching floating seaweeds or logs, providing holes and crevices for a variety of intertidal critters, and a solid substrate for barnacles and mussels. Sand flows around them as the tide comes and goes, making hills and valleys, semi-permanent tide-pools where a small fish can wait safely through the dry hours.

Walking on the sand at low tide, I veer from one anchor point to the next; no two alike, none uninhabited.

We stopped at this one yesterday:

A half-buried bucketload of cement, with rusted metal fittings, long turned into red stone, encrusted with barnacles and seaweeds.

The "face" of the bucket, with a small log and a deepish pool.

Both Laurie and I poked our cameras into those two holes; none of the photos were any good, but we did see what was inside. They are rusty metal tubes, probably where some sort of fixture to hold a boat was attached. The top one shelters several hermit crabs and snails; a small, green crab guards the door of the lower tube.

"You can't see me; I'm green, and I'm hiding under green seaweed!"*

*(That's assuming that a crab sees colours the same as we do, which is entirely unevidenced.)

On the downstream side of the bucket, the current has hollowed out a pool and a long, shallow valley, paving the valley with broken clamshells.

Refraction through a couple of inches of water.

And where the shells peter out, in a calm backwater, worms keep on feeding while the rest of the beach lies dormant.

These are the largest worm tubes I have seen on the beach, up to 3 inches tall, standing firm.

They remind me of tipsy pilings left behind when an old wharf is demolished. But these have neat holes in the top, and if you look closely at the right moment, transparent tentacles reaching out.

And look again! See that whitish thing near the centre, that square with a tail? I didn't, when I was taking the photos, and it turned up on a half dozen. So I missed out; must be more observant.

The Mud-flat Hooded Shrimp, Nebalia pugettensis!

I last saw one of these 4 years ago. And the one before that was another 4 years earlier (Two posts). They're probably plentiful on the beach, but they're usually burrowing in the muck. This may be a dead one, or a molt. The live one I found had blue eyes; the dead ones I'd seen earlier had red eyes.

If you look back at the first photo of the Nebalia, you might see the second one, down by the lower right hand corner, half-hidden behind a blade of eelgrass.

And here's another one:

Very hairy green crab, not bothering to hide. And just below the broken shell at upper left, another Nebalia.

This one has no colour left. It must be a molted carapace and legs.

I hope I don't have to wait another 4 years before I see my next mud shrimp.

Next: another bucket.

Eight-legged hobbit?

Hermit crabs live in borrowed snail shells. "True" crabs hide themselves under rocks, or bury themselves up to the eyestalks in the sand. But one of my little crabs has taken a hint from the hermits.

I provided an assortment of shells for the hermits; whatever I could find or had collected from other sources. Some are from local beaches, some from Mexico and Central America, a few from unknown shores, shells I picked up in garage sale lots.  But hermits have their likes and dislikes; some will accept even non-shell outfits, made of glass, broken bottle caps, or even Lego (look!) but many have very specific tastes. Mine, hermits from Boundary Bay, will only wear discarded shells from local species of marine snails: whelk, mud snails, or periwinkles. Everything else is invisible to them, so far.

One of the smaller shore crabs discovered a broken shell ignored by the hermits, and moved in.

Hobbit house* shell, from down south, is about 1 1/2 inches across.

The shell makes a great shelter; front and back doors, complete privacy, no maintenance. The crab stays inside most of the time, even when I pick up the shell as I clean the aquarium, or when larger crabs push it around. He comes out when I provide crab treats, only to grab his share and retreat to eat it in his own space.

I was surprised, a couple of days ago, to see him out of the shell, digging busily deep in the sand a couple of inches away. I watched. After a minute, he surfaced carrying a large white stone, which he carried over to his home shell, and deposited in the doorway. There were already several others there, in both openings.

Front door, back door, with privacy screens. He's well hidden inside.

The stones fell out when I tidied the aquarium yesterday, but he's since added a new sandy floor inside and three fresh stones at the doors.

*It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats ... J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Can't see me

... I'm hiding!

He reminds me of some kids I have known.

My annual countdown: one more day to Solstice; tomorrow, the 21st at 3:38 PM, here on the West Coast. Three more days until the day is as long as yesterday was. Sunrise at 8:04 AM, sunset at 4:15 PM; 8 hours, 11 minutes, 46 seconds of daylight.

Four days to Christmas Eve, when the (large) family will gather in my (small) apartment; I'm busy sorting out chairs, tables and dishes. Such fun, already!