This day started out with a very clear and very blue sky, but it quickly began filling with puffy white clouds that later changed to gray as they thickened up. It’s still windy, about as windy as yesterday though the northeaster is supposed to be over. The wind direction is different, coming at a diagonal across the river, so moderate waves can be seen far out into the river and they crash regularly against the beach. For us these are large waves, but only measure ten or so inches high. They make enough noise to be overwhelm any wind sounds.
The tide is close to high level and waves seem like they should drive water further up the beach, but the wet line is actually a few inches lower than yesterday. I know this because when we reach the place with the new chunk of bank on the beach, there’s now a narrow path between the wet clay edge and the water line compared with yesterday when we had to walk through the yucky clay. Well, some clay had to wash away; no I can see the foot prints from yesterday.
The sand level has dropped generally, too. I can barely reach the limb on the pull up tree which is at least six inches higher, now.
Another major change on the beach is a good sized pine tree near the new chunk of bank. They aren’t related, but are fifty feet apart. The broken tree trunk can be seen on the lip of the bank about twenty feet above. It snapped off about ten feet above the ground, then tipped over so the top landed at the base of the bank, and the fat end then tipped on over into the water. Right now there’s a patch of small pine branches with attached pine needles against the bank and a trunk that extends out into and under the water. I can’t seen where the end is. It looks healthy, not diseased or rotten, and the thicker end looks to be about eighteen inches across — a good sized tree, maybe forty feet tall; not a lot of limbs except for a cluster at the top.
The winds did not seem strong enough to have caused this, but we sometimes get these micro bursts that are like tiny tornadoes and do serious damage to just a couple trees. Walking back I can see a lot of serious sized trees along the lip, trees much larger than the pine. I wouldn’t want to be nearby if they decided to topple.
The wind is in our faces as Izzy and I return, but not too bothersome. It’s cool though, especially once the sun is blocked by clouds.
I just noticed today there aren’t any boats at the fancy pier, nor for our immediate neighbor. They may have been moved several days ago. The fancy pier roof is, in fact, completed.
No oyster boats again, nor birds, nor contrails, and I heard what may have been a jet fighter, but saw nothing.
Near where we get on the beach I find a small chunk of fossilized whale bone to add to our collection. It’s the size of the end of a human thigh bone, about five inches long. It had washed up and was lying on top of the sand. —-
