Morning walk at low tide

Wren and I woke before 7am this morning. It was probably my fault. I can't sleep in bright light and the bedroom upstairs has no curtains so I wake with the dawn a bit after 5am. I managed to doze until 6am and then went downstairs to tussle with the coffee maker.

I really don't do coffee machines.

First, it started beeping at me in a strident way. I had put the water in the jug not the Receptacle - I was hoping it had a pump and would suck the water into the top part. Of course not. Blech.

I moved it to the receptacle.

Then it didn't go and didn't go. It was on some kind of automated timer cycle. I pressed BREW NOW. It started showing a cryptic LED display that looked like a sun rising and settling so I left it a while. I returned and removed the jug to check it but it was empty and it BEEPED AGAIN. Argh. Apparently it was waiting to be told the BREW STRENGTH I required.

There should be a button marked "don't care, maximum quick."

Morning ferry in the mist. I am witness to the fact they go ALL NIGHT

That time around I found the "MUTE" button but Wren had already "woked up" so we decided to go for a walk on the beach which was at the lowest tide for the day.

Low tide

Mid tide (it gets a lot higher)

Wren finds the tidal movements puzzling. When he comes down in the morning he rushes to the window and comments on the sea. Here are some of his observations:

"It is a tsunami. That is what it is." [high tide with ferry wake]

"It is normal again. NOR-MAL." [medium tide]

"It is all NEW! It is monster rocks. Those are monsters but they are sleeping . Be careful bird, you are near the monsters." [low tide with seagulls]

He agreed to come walking with me if we avoided the monster rocks. We did for a while but then I showed him that almost every monster rock had a starfish hiding under it and so we stared to explore. Here, Wren points out two sunstars hiding together under a large weedy rock.

There be sea stars

Another source of amusement were the geoduct and clam siphons. They appear as dimples in the sand at low tide but sometimes can be seen sticking right out. If you touch them, poke them or scoop the sand around a dimple, they can be made to squirt a lot of water as they retract. Once a showed Wren how to spot them he could not be stopped.

A siphon waiting to be touched

POKE!

Here is Wren on our rocky beach. We collected some treasures from the beach, including crab carapaces, clam shells, a dead chiton with some meat still on (Wren suggested we put it in the hot tub) a broken old fashioned coke bottle and some interesting pebbles.

Wren took this picture of me

We walked all the way to Dolphin Point. This is a walk-in community which was the home of Betty Mc Donald (who wrote Miss Piggle Wiggle and The Egg and I). Because it was low tide it was easy to walk along the sandy and rocky shore but it could be tricky or impassable once the water comes in. Dolphin point is very pretty and quixotically Vashon shoreline. Perhaps if Mum comes with us on her visit we can walk all the way to the next access beach at low tide.

The view south from Dolphin Point this morning