This is sea foam. It is frothy, it floats, it's made of bubbles. It is picturesque and sparks curiosity: "What is the big patch of white over there?" Sea foam is used for names of colours; you could paint your walls seafoam green. Seafoam green is also the colour of the Fendor Statocastor in Stranger Than Fiction. I am pretty sure the term sea foam is also used in advertising copy and product names for bath bubbles and maybe even perfumes.
But here is something you may not know about sea foam. It can be a bit smelly. And it can also be brownish, and then it is not as romantic. Sometimes a combination of natural factors lead to a mass production of sea foam. I have only seen this a few times.
It can form large "continents" that float on the edge of the tide. These foamy countries break up and come together like a demonstration of plate tectonics.
Once, many years ago, when my three children were small, the sea foam covered many square metres of the coast line, from the shore up onto the sand. It was half a metre thick spread out all along the beach as far as you could see in both directions. It was higher than our big green rubber boots. It was the brown, slightly smelly kind, but it was just too amazing not to run and jump in. So we did. I am sure I have a Super8 video cassette with footage of that somewhere.
Now that is impressive sea foam!
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