What compels us to walk along the beach, our eyes fixed upon the sand?  When Lisa and I lived in North Carolina, it was the hope of finding another Megalodon shark tooth or a Scotch Bonnet, the state shell.  Now that we live in Washington, with shark teeth nonexistent and shells are a rarity, we can’t resist the smooth, surf-polished stones on our beaches that have been tossed this way and that by the waves.  Their intriguingly varied colors, patterns, and shape draw us to the hunt.  Something about these beach stones is comforting.  

They don’t seem to age, die, or fade away.  But that is an illusion, born of our own short presence on Earth.  Their features are a witness to change, and for most stones, the beach is just the latest stop on a journey that began eons ago.

A rock does not become a stone until it has been freed from the bedrock, its sharp edges rounded off and rough texture smoothed, fashioning that generally occurs at or on its way to the beach.

This green rock’s complete icing top of white is a partially eroded vein of quartz.  If I hadn’t removed it from the beach and left it to roll in the surf for a few more centuries, the quartz vein would have disappeared, chiseled off by other rocks to form tiny grains of sand.

After slowly solidifying miles beneath the Earth’s surface, granite must wait millions of years for ice and running water to wash away the confining layers above to expose it.  Micas are often responsible for the shiny, tiny bits which are so commonly seen in the rock.  Given many rocks in our area are form glacial deposits, I wonder where this stone originated?

Agates develop as secondary deposits in hollow cavities.  Although they can form in all types of host rock, most of the world's agates developed in ancient volcanic lava.  This agate is still holding tight to its host rock.

 

This Orbicular Jasper is a uniques specimen of rock found on the beached of the PacificNorthwest. Jasper rocks present a cluster of orbs over its surface that are red in tone. 

Our cat Vivian picked up a virus from the home of our cat sitter while we were in Hawaii (from other cats).  She did not feel well.  For a number of days she disappeared to numerous hiding places in our home.  She sought comfort in tiny spaces like this box.  This does not look comfortable.

One place we like to frequent when we are in Hawaii are shaved ice (shaved snow) establishments.  We now have one in Anacortes, started by a lady from Kauai.  Ian and Kaylene surprised us by taking us there on opening day.

                              Memorial Day dinner with the kids at Washington Park.  

 The does are popping out their fawns all over.  This little guy is but a few hours old.

If you are like Lisa and I you try to keep your email inbox empty, but that is not so for everyone.  We recently had dinner with the stake leadership and their wives.  In the conversation the stake president mentioned he had over 4,000 unread emails.  We though that was a huge amount, but only until one of the lady’s at the table mentioned she had over 44,000 unread emails (she is the head of the local school board).  Inbox zero is a mythological dream for her.

Here is a recent news post from Maui, Hawaii we found on the web:

A man from California died after an apparent shark attack in Hawaii last Saturday, officials said. 

The Maui Fire Department said the incident happened around 9 a.m. at Honokowai Point near Ka'anapali Beach Park area on Maui as the man was swimming about 60 yards from shore. 

Maui officials said the man was swimming in water roughly 20 to 25 feet deep. Winds at the time were light, with 1-foot surf and clear waters at the time. 

“Maui has for some reason been a hot spot in the Hawaiian islands for tiger shark attacks, and I don't think anybody can really say with any certainty why that is," he told the television station. "There's certainly great tiger shark habitat on Maui, a lot of shallow water, but a lot of people in the water, too.”

“This was just a case of bad timing. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” a spokesperson said. “His wife said Tom told her he was going to go on one last swim before they left Maui.”

This man died right off shore from where we stayed on our Hawaii trip.

I mentioned in our last blog posting that we spent time on Oneloa Beach, a few minute drive north of where we were staying at Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club in Ka’anapali.  What I didn’t mention in our blog post is when we were on the beach looking out into Oneloa Bay we were watching a girl boogey board in the surf.  When she got near the shore I saw a huge shark or seal in the water directly under her.  She readily got out of the water (her last run) and I ran up to her and told her what I saw.  She said she knew sharks had been seen in the waters off Maui.  It freaked her out and she was glad she was done for the day.

Given the shark attack noted from the news report above, my guess is that I saw a shark under the boogey boarder.  I’m glad we didn’t go into the water that day.