Sharks! and Tellins

  The days are ever so gently blending together so that I no longer remember which day contained which events.  Late afternoon-early evenings at the beach have been wonderful with their full blown breezes to cool the heat.  On one of these days, further south along the beach, we got there in time to see the lifeguards packing up to leave; one of the items they carried was a red flag.
This is the first time here on the island that I have actually seen flags flying on the beach–at the life guard stands.  Well, it’s the first time I’ve seen lifeguards, come to think of it!  I have seen the posted signs at the edge of the dunes with the information of what each color of flag means. (The funny thing is that the signs posted at various places along the beach don’t agree….)
Anyway, the red flag is a warning flag.  But I wasn’t going in the water anyway, so it was just a casual interest.  But…     Later that night we found out that sharks were seen in the water and the lifeguards had to get everybody out of the water.  That would have been interesting to see everybody streaming back to shore instead of going into the waves. So, no sharks teeth this trip; one shark sighting instead.
Another evening we chose a different section of the beach, one that was wider.  This day it happened to be extremely smooth with a large shiny wet surface on the sand.  Hardly any shells, except for live tillers.  These are little colorful shells with the two halves joined together.  Approximately triangular in shape, although a long triangle pointed on one end and fairly flat on the larger opposite end.  I spent quite awhile just watching these little critters at the water’s edge.  When a wave came it apparently dislodged them from under the sand so that they were left lying on their side as the wave receeded.  Almost as if being conducted in a symphony, as a group they would each pop upright for an instant, pointy end down, and then quickly work their way into the wet sand so that only the flat end showed, just barely.
There are a lot more people on the beach this trip, but then it is summer.  More dogs.  I’ve only seen two dogs go in the water; the rest run, walk, and visit.  And, of course one other thing for which their owners bring little bags so it can then be disposed of in the big blue trash barrels back at the edge of the dunes.  More people, but still not that many; it’s still nice.