At the Ocean, Tiny Action

Sad and strange fact: I haven’t been to the coast for a whole calendar year. So when B. said that a carload + dog were heading down, I had to go. To see sea. To taste salt in my mouth and eyes. To pay propers to the place where various horizontal expanses meet like layers of a perfect cake; sky, water and sand. On actually arriving, it was only better still.

You can lay out on the beach of Fort Fisher in Wilmington and swim, then fall asleep, then carve the likenesses of cats, crabs and large, somewhat trans-gendered, mermaids out of the miniscule bits of glass we know as sand (as J. here can attest to):



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The surfers were out. As were the kite flyers. One caught our eye from a distance most particularly. It was kind of clunky. And black. “Is that a … truck?” said C. Oh yes, it was. This little kid was running down the length of the beach, trying to fly nothing other than a kite conjured in the form of a black monster truck, with the monsterish name “Destroyer” written across its side.

“Wow, I’ve never quite seen a kite like that,” I said. The boy cautiously agreed, maybe not knowing any more than I did whether that was a good or bad thing. But really it was neither. It was just a thing. A strangely funny thing.




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Walking along the foam edge of the incoming waves of tide, you can see bubbles and shifting roly-poly things squirming in the sand.


I’ve always seen tiny clams getting tossed around in this part of the water called the “swash” but never really understood what was going on till B. and H. pointed out how the clams were actually pushing themselves *out* of the sand as waves came, catching them, and surfing them higher up onto the beach. An expert on the matter (and former teacher of B. and H.), a Dr. Olaf Ellers writes:

To migrate, several times each tidal cycle, it [a clam] jumps out of the sand (pushing its shell upward by thrusting two to five times downward with its foot) and rides flow from waves. This method of locomotion has been named "swash-riding" (Ellers, 1987, 1988).

Not only that, but all along the beaches' swash you can see small clams lift up en masse, in patches along the beach. How and why? Apparently they can hear the big waves coming, and set themselves up into pole position to catch the next ride.

Another plentiful inhabitant is the Mole Crab, Emerita talpoida. On shore walks you may likely walk over their mysterious multitudes unknowingly. Little streamlined tank-pods, these crabs dig backward into the sand when uncovered by the wave water in the swash. I’m suspecting they may also be surfers, perhaps when we are not looking. Maybe you can note with affection the tiny yellow eyes at the end of the short eye-stalks of its small and pointy head.


The first time I’d ever come across mole crabs was on a visit to Assateague Island in 1992, finding some here and some there. Today there were thousands and upon thousands more. You could dig your hands into the soft and loose sand when the waves come up, and emerge with these smooth ellipsoids in your palm, in every conceivable size. I suppose if you are of a more technophilic persuasion, a certain analogy might come to mind.


It was hard not to crouch, dig and laugh in curious awe as the somewhat anxious crabs try to dig down between your fingers. So this is exactly what we did, watching out for the mole crabs, or what we now joyfully referred to as “Tiny Action.” C. seemed to find the smallest baby one, barely the size of the sharpest pencil tip, and so translucent as to almost be invisible.

Could I learn to be as both hidden and brave as a surfing clam or moling crab? Life no doubt is in the swash. If only the cycle of tides or the sense of the ocean were somewhat more obvious to me...

Still, one has to admire the waves. Even if they are about to soak you (and your camera).