Seashells on the Seashore

 

 

I never heard about tide pools before. Or perhaps I was not really a beach person and I did not care. I was joining a beach meetup hike for the first time and I clammed up as usual. I was never the hiker who could just strike an animated tete-a-tete with anyone.  I wish I could just pose anyone a question without this person I am talking to  having to bend down  lower so he or she could get his or her closer to my lips and understand what I could be saying. I wanted so much to ask Elana how far Monlight Beach is to Swami Beach. But  I did not want to sound like I am referring to a female dog.  I am sure I would be able to find the famed Tiki head carved from a dead tree trunk myself. The Tiki is  supposed to be at Swami Beach.

That was Elana, Elise, Kate and myself bending over to examine the rocks where clams, mussels and other marine life clung. Elana, the former camp director and lead for the hike was reciting the organisms clinging on the rocks in a litany. Echinoderms. Anthropods. Mollusks. Planktons. Anemones.

 

 

Plankton? Isn't he the enemy of Sponge Bob? I did not know that a Plankton  is a singular Plankter. I do know from watching Sponge Bob that this singular Plankter could be a nuisance like terrestial flies.

 

Elise saw me kick the metal on what seem to be on a rod on the rock. I was wondering whether the bolt was just there by accident. Elise, a fellow hiker seemed to know more about marine ecology than Elana who could enumerate the marine organism clinging on the rocks in a litany.Without my asking, Elise told me that the bolt is used as a research marker for marine ecology programs. The bolt may have been imbedded there to mark the area as a control in a marine research variable. Interesting!

 

 

 

 

Whether the seashells are mussels or clams, this clammed-up hiker couldn not tell. Unable to clam-up any further, I asked Elise whether the mussels or clams are edible.

 

"I would not eat them. they could be full of crap"

 

I wanted to tell Elise that where I come from, anyone could sell seashells in the seashore. And we buy and devour these crap as exotic food.

 

 

Sea flowers in the seashore?  Every tide pool seems to be a good weather for them to bloom. Actually they are called Anemones and they are not even plants. Anemones or sea anemone are just named after those terrestial plants. According to Wiki, sea anemones are a group of water dwelling predatory animals . They are classified as Phylums and related to corals and jelly fishes. Sea anemones are always attached to rock surfaces by an adhessive foot called basal disc. As for corals, I don't know if they are also animals. You have to ask Wiki yourself.