Beachcombing Alaska Style

I never admitted to my audience (thanks to my wife, brother, and sister for being an "audience") that we live part of the year in Alaska and part of the year in Florida.  In fact, I'm proud that I haven't told any Alaska stories that my wife has heard 500 times or more!!

The other day we finally got a decent weather day and decided to go beachcombing.  That "we" decided to go is another story, but since it's not a very nice story about my personality - I won't tell that one!

Anyway, we hopped in the boat and tied up to the Forest Service buoy at Brent's Beach Cabin, a great place to stay for a  day or 3.  After a 5 minute dinghy row and a 20 minute walk through the woods, we came out on a beautiful black sand beach.

There's ML wandering on down the way in this picture.

Logs and driftwood are plentiful on Southeast Alaska beaches.  There is always a "tideline" pretty high up the beach that is reasonably dry.  Depending on what stage of the tide you arrive, there could easily be a lower tideline too.

Among the seaweed and driftwood, there are trinkets.  ML collected some skipping rocks, a pretty piece of driftwood, a raven feather, and a piece of pumice to send to grandson J.  The Mt. Edgecumbe volcano crater are on the same island (Kruzoff Island) and there are always bits of pumice around to work on getting your feet smooth.

Although we didn't see any on this trip, my favorite is tiny dried out crabs like this one.  Unfortunately, I didn't include a reference for size in the picture, but the whole thing is about the size of an old half dollar.

I also love the fact that there is not one other soul on the beach.   It just feels good that way.

 
If you look across the water, you can see a few of the buildings in Sitka up against the mountains.


I'm not real religious, but the day was a blessing after 24 consecutive days of rain and "colder than normal" weather.  We sat in the sand with our backs against a big driftwood log and were sunshine warm.  Nirvana!