Transient Treasures in the Sand

These marks on the beach below the sand dunes at Ynys-Las appeared in serried ranks after the retreating tide.

They are known as 'rill marks'. Water running down through the sand following the retreating tide often leaves marks of this kind, imprinted up the beach away from the tide line and much less noticeable than the ribbed sand marks which can be seen further down the beach. Rill marks often spread out in rough branch-like fashion, but these exquisite patterns, repeated right along this stretch of beach, are some of the most delicate and striking I've seen.

Being on the beach in Winter at low tide when there is no-one else around enables close inspection of such features in the sand otherwise unmarked except for the occasional faint tracks of sandpipers scuttling across it, but those are more apparent further along the beach among the rock pools and the outcrops of peat which are the remains of a long-submerged forest. Here there is just sand and its bareness and unblemished expanse down from the dunes to the sea invites closer inspection of the different textures across the apparently smooth surface.

Such subtle jewels of revelation on a still day are treasured. A storm is coming and after that the beach will be a very different place, with other things to discover.

Tide

R i b b e d  s a n d ,  w e t  i n  t h e  w a v e – s p r a y
w h e r e  t h e  s e a  r u n s  i n    r e l e n t l e s s l y
a n d  s t r e a m s    b a c k  o v e r    a  compact  o f


f i n e  g r i t s  s m o o t h i n g  t h e m    t o  a
s i n g l e    s u b s t a n c e     w h i c h  y e t ,  w h e n
d r y ,  f l o w s    l i k e    w a t e r    t h r o u g h  t h e


f i n g e r s    o n  t h i s    b e a c h ,  a n d    t h e
d u n e s  b e h i n d  i t ,  n o    s t o n e  t h a t    w o u l d
b e    c a l l e d    a    s t o n e  ( n o    r o c k ,    n o  p e b b l e )


j u s t    t h e  s a n d ,    w e t    i n     t h e    w a v e – s p r a y
a n d  s t r e a m i n g    b a c k  o v e r  i t     t h e  s e a
r e t u r n i n g    w a v e    u p o n    w a v e  r e l e n t l e s s l y

Shells, Stones and Mermaid's Purses

Shells on a beach lying between pebbles banded with quartz, others the colours of jade or garnet, embedded in gritty sand, infused in some far-distant geological event, worn smooth by the tides ebbing and flowing across a beach that was once a forest and before that a salt marsh, changes in the ebbing and flowing of the land itself through the relentless tide of time seeming to flow one way only but bringing with it changes that turn sea beds into mountains and wash away even the highest mountains.

Yet on this beach now, lying next to fragments of ancient rocks, are these shells, new-formed by comparison but discarded, their inhabitants digested by the oystercatchers foraging in the sea's edge. And here, too, the empty egg case of a dogfish, its hard casing and vetch-like tendrils obsolete on this beach where it attracts the name 'mermaid's purse', an apparently more fitting identification for so durable an object than one that assigns its purpose as a container for the eggs of a fish. So fact and fancy dwell together in the combination of the name of the object and what we know it to be in this blink of time's eye, though two blinks ago it would have been otherwise.

So as the the Sun in the northern hemisphere begins, gradually, to strengthen (as from the standpoint of this beach it appears to us)and we turn our calenders to day one of our arbitrary reckoning of a new year, these shells, this mermaid's purse, these ancient stones - all fragments of time's relentlessness - lie in witness ( lie in witness?)to what was, to what is, and await with deceptive stillness the flux of what will be.

Beachcombing

items of driftwood

I live a mile or so from the sea, which means that although I do most of my adventurous walking in the mountains, just a little way inland, we also often walk along the seashore. Some time ago we also began taking a couple of bags with us to pick up small pieces of driftwood to feed the fire. These are mainly irregularly shaped pieces, worn by the waves and the shingle into fissured shards of the trees they came from, or smaller pieces worn smooth by the same process. They make elegant piles on the hearth and, well-seasoned, burn well, sometimes with a blue flame from the salt in them. But we soon moved on from this to taking our estate car as near as we could to particularly good spots and filling it with larger pieces of wood and have now extended our capacity further by buying a small electric chain saw to cut up even bigger pieces when we get them home.

So now it is not so much a matter of picking up wood on a walk as incorporating a walk in a wood-gathering expedition. This has almost replaced the need to buy-in logs and all we need is a small amount of coal to keep the fire burning. This also means that we go more often and so have become more familiar with the inhabitants of the tide line: the waders foraging on the shore and the gulls dipping into the crashing waves as they roll onto the beach.

But on a recent visit all was silent. The beach was covered with sheets of ice and not a bird was to be seen. Today, though, was different. The gulls swooped overhead and oyster catchers stood in the foam of the waves that ran across the sand. On the cliffs huge icicles hung down, but dripping in the slow thaw. As the temperature rose there were shifts in the cliff face. Lumps of earth fell away and a huge boulder came crashing down onto the shingle shelf above the edge of the sand at the high tide line.

This is a coastline in transition. Five thousand years ago a forest grew on what had previously been marsh. Then the waters returned and all the beaches north and south of here have the remains of trees buried beneath them and sometimes exposed, as at Borth where the semi-fossilised stumps are often visible sticking out of the sand at low tide. The legendary expression of this fact is the story of Cantre’r Gwaelod a land lost beneath the waves. As the cliffs erode and water levels begin to rise perhaps some of what is now standing against the coast – the leisure centre, the caravan park and miles of cliffs – will be washed by waves running in relentlessly over fallen rocks, bricks and mortar.

In the meantime we’ll carry on going to our favourite beach where two currents meet and pile up rows of seaweed, driftwood and other debris along the side of the estuary of a small river that meets the sea here and brings down tree branches and other items onto the beach from inland. The wood we take, if left, would rot and release its carbon into the air, and we only accelerate the process by burning it. We also remove from the beach much natural and manufactured timber such as fence posts, bits of boat and other unidentifiable items. Perhaps it is naïve to believe that burning this instead of coal or electricity will do much to delay the onset of climate change that may eventually make the beach a ‘lost land’. But it keeps us in touch with the pulse of life at the edge of the ocean and also keeps our midwinter hearth burning bright.