a walk on the beach

A walk on Folly Beach this morning, early, before the sun was too strong, before too many people there. Carol, Mike and I. The waves nearly caught me once. I want to close in to see what Carol has discovered out there.-- she walks barefoot so goes further out than I do. I have rubber shoes on, what does it matter that I get my feet wet? Mike has on regular sneakers and is not about to get them soaked. Now, what is she looking at?

The water is warm, she said. I move closer and look down at the round blob in the water. It's about 16 inches across the bottom, which looks like a straw-woven garden hat, the base of a large "gelatin mold" I called it. It was inside that took our attention now and the "mold" was transparent so that we could see there. It took a bit of studying -- and when the tidal wave moved the jellyfish toward me, I ran. Going back, I could see that there was a yellowish substance, lumpy, around the soft inside blob. We are looking for and counting eyes, appendages. We continue our walk.

Carol handed me a rock to look at. Strange looking, seems to have flat shells imbedded in one side.

Soon Carol stopped us to look at what I thought was a turtle shell, seeing the pointy little tail, about 5" long. I found out it was the shell of the largest crab I had ever seen. Carol turned it over so we could see the inside body parts which were moist from the washing of the tidal waves. She lifted the claws. A little girl about l0 came over and listened to Carol describe what we were looking at. Carol flipped the shell over and we looked for eyes, more than two, she said. We found two, then were on our way back.

Looking up, as I walked (not too smart, walking over shells and rocks) I spied in the distance an extremely colorful bird which I studied intently. I moved ahead of Mike and Carol. I continued watching. Not a pelican, and certainly not a hawk... but large, and wings, orange, reddish in the sun, dipping down, up and down again...what can it be? I hear nothing from Mike, nor Carol. They are very quiet behind me. Of course they must know, but I don't ask. We walked closer. There, it has landed. Oh! The man pulled the string to straighten it out, and away again it flew, up, up, down, up.

We crossed over and went up the wooden stairs, heading for our car and home, Mike, Carol and I, still looking at the rock and wondering if they knew all along it was a kite.