Low Tide, Best Idea Ever!

Hey Nature,
It's here, May Day, the start of the #30x30naturechallenge and #lovenature letter writing exercise. I made myself a promise to spend 30 minutes in nature for 30 days in May. Some of my friends are doing this with me too!

So today I started by having a really nice nap on the couch at the cottage with the sun shining in on me, and the window on the ocean side cracked open so I could hear the screeching of the herring gulls and the endless piercing crying of the mobs of black ducks congregating on the water. But I figure that didn't quite count for my 30 minutes in nature, so about an hour before low tide I headed down to the beach.

I gotta tell you, Nature, low tide is really one of your better ideas. Seriously, pull back the ocean and expose all kinds of space and cool stuff for a couple hours, and then hide it all again. It adds a whole treasure hunt feel to the walking activity. Three metres up or down on the big spring tides means a hundred meters distance on our long flat sandy beach. That is a lot more ground to explore! And even if it looks pretty empty at first, there is a lot of interesting stuff to see: clam hieroglyphics are one of my favourites, those little guys move through the sand and make crazy spirals and lines, it looks like they are trying to communicate with us through some sort of secret code! And there are sand dollars and crab shells -at least three different kinds, and bright green sea lettuce, and long ribbons of kelp taller than me, and Irish moss with those little pillows that you want to pop like bubble wrap. But the best thing about low tide is that it sometimes clears a pathway along the rocky cliffs at the end of the beach over to the next two bays, and I can go exploring. I like the beach, but I love the rocks. Scrambling over rocks is one of the best things ever. And my dog is part mountain goat because he likes it too.

So thanks, Nature, for low tide and rocks.
Sincerely,
Sharon Coyle