Beaches at Low Tide on Calvert

August 29th (Thursday)
We were up early so as to be on the beaches and exploring for the low tide at 06:55.  It was clear blue sky and the sun was coming up, and it was not long before we were all taking off our morning layers. 
Sunrise just after 05:30.

Getting daylight as we arrive at the dock to begin the hike at 06:15

This squid was on the dock. Not sure how it got there.

It was a beautiful early morning to be on the shore, and at first we were all too warm and we took our jackets and sweaters off, but it did not take long for the distant fog bank to roll in, and then for all of us to be putting our layers back on. 
We started the hike from West Beach.
On to Second Beach.
Sandhill cranes were on the beach, but they easily startle so needed to zoom in with lens.
Sandhill crane footprints.

 We enjoyed exploring along the shore and looking at the abundance of sea life that lives below the high tide line. 
Sea anemone and starfish.

Layers of sea anemone, muscles, and seaweed show the tide levels things live at. 

It was interesting for Jason and I to see how parts of the beach had changed since we had last been there, and a lot of it we think was due to the 50 knot storm that we had had a couple of weeks ago.  
Gooseneck barnacles.
Interesting beetle amongst the barnacles with yellow spots to be well camouflaged (centre picture).

On seventh beach we got a fire going and enjoyed the warmth from the fire with a mid-morning snack before starting the hike back. Unfortunately my mom took a bad tumble off of a slippery log while coming down onto one of the beaches, and so with a badly sprained ankle, scrapes, and bruises the hike back was not as enjoyable as it could have been. We took our time and made it back to the Hakai Institute and back home.  
J and I spent some time talking to one of the park rangers who we had met the first time we were at Calvert, and he gave us some fresh garden carrots and cherry tomatoes that he had just been given from the Hakai garden. It was like gold to us, and we savoured the amazing flavours with lunch at home.  
We spent the afternoon relaxing, writing, reading, and sorting pictures, while my mom iced her ankle.  
Later, in the early evening, Jason and I went out to pull up our crab trap that we had placed in 500’ of water, hoping for some fresh food for dinner.  We both commented that it felt heavy while pulling it up, and when we got it to the surface we found out why.  It was so full of crabs that I was not able to pull it into the boat with one arm like I usually do.  Jason gave me a hand, and we were shocked as we looked at our crawling, clicking trap full of Dungeness crabs.  
 31 Crabs!
The trap was so full that as we set it down on the seat of the boat one male crab was able to walk out the door of the trap and into my hands because he was so high up in the trap walking on the backs of his fellow crab.  We kept count as we sorted through the trap and did a wrap of our rope around the outboard handle for every crab we let go.  In total we had 31 crabs in our trap!!! 
One was a female rock crab and the rest were Dungeness. Of the 30 Dungeness, 25 were females, three were undersized males, and two were 7.5” males.  7.5” is the biggest crabs we have caught so far this trip. Yay.  It still amazes me how full that trap was and how many females there were. Absolutely amazing!!
The two we got to keep.
We each got one half of a large Dungeness crab for dinner along with some pasta.  Yay Dungeness, what a treat!!!

(Sheya’s mom writing: Happy Birthday to Sheya! If any of you want to acknowledge Sheya’s birthday, it is today [September 9th]. You can either post a public comment to the blog through the blog website, and she will receive an e-mail letting her know that there has been a comment made on her blog, or you can e-mail her privately at sheyaeno@gmail.com)

Comments

  1. JanSeptember 13, 2019 at 9:36 AM

    Happy Birthday Sheya! Hope your special day was full of wonderful treats.

    ReplyDelete

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