Visited this place today (Dec 27, 2017) with my sister. Had a great time. Great weather, not cold even though it's December. For the first time, I saw a tide pool at low tide and saw live sea anemones, sea cucumbers, tons of hermit crabs, live shells, beautiful coloured and beautiful shaped seaweed here. Here are a few photos. Also walked along a trail on a cliff by the sea. Lots of cyprus trees here. To my disappointment I discovered that the Cyprus trees beauty is not entirely natural. They get their shape of leaning on one side as the people chop the branches on one side!
Above is a bunch of shells stuck on the rock; to the right is a sea anemone. I suppose the pink stuff is a seaweed or algae. It's soft and floats and so I think the pink thing is not coral...but don't quote me!
I believe the above is called sun-burst anemone. It was the most beautiful sea creature I saw today!
above are a variety of sea weeds; much to my sister's disgust, I bit into a tube like weed, to see what it tasted like...it's salty
Above is a single shelled mollusc i.e. limpet...it's a single dome or cone shaped one. I am seeing this shell, live, for the first time in sea today.
Above you see a lot of white stones and shell pieces stuck on a surface. This thing with shell debris stuck to it is also a sea anemone(googled it!). The sea anemone feels very sticky when you touch it...I suppose that stickiness makes the shells stick to it.
I wonder if all these things sticking to the rocks, with things sticking to them are all sea anemones?
Above and below are sea weeds or sea algae
Above is a flower I saw in a garden in a house near this marine reserve.
I saw this flower, in someone's garden; the garden and home are 5 minutes walk from the sea.
Above is a tree, growing in a lucky person's backyard, at the edge of the cliff by the sea. Imagine living a stone's throw away from this beautiful ocean! The beauty is constantly changing...a different beauty at sun-rise, at sun-set,; at high tide & low tide, when it's moonlit & under dark skies; when it's foggy, when it's clear; I would sit in an arm-chair and watch this endless movie if I were here
I love this plant above and discovered on google that it's called the 'ice plant' and native to Africa and brought to California to keep the beaches safe ...instead it has lead to reduced biodiversity and become a pest and does not even keep the beaches safe as the water filled leaves are heavy and weaken the sand. It may be a pest, but it's such a pretty pest
People pay a lot to buy this flower in Toronto, where I live...here it grows wild! I saw this on the trail, above the beach. Not sure if this is a Calla Lily or Arum lily or something else
This beach is so different from one part to another. One place had lots of stones; a few minutes walk away and it had lots of coarse sand and sea weed; a few minutes away, the sand was soft and not coarse at all; a few minutes away there were lots of shells and few minutes walk later, there are no shells at all on this beach.
Above is some lucky person's home...imagine having a marine reserve/ocean/beach as your backyard!
Above is seaweed and rocks by the sea.
I saw many 'solid' rocks on the beach...but they had these mysterious holes in them. I wonder what caused these holes in such hard rocks? How come the holes are so perfectly round? This is a real mystery to me. This rock, had more than the usual number of holes.
Discovered on Google that these holes are caused by the bivalve called piddocks and the bore holes in the rock by rotating their shells in a circular scouring motion. I did see a bivalve stuck inside one of the holes but did not photograph it. Damn! It's amazing to me how these shells are strong enough to bore holes in these rock-solid rocks...no pun intended!. Yet these shells are brittle enough to break easily. Nature is endlessly paradoxical!
Two months after the visit to this marine reserve, I am still fascinated by the rocks with holes bored by piddocks and I keep googling. I discovered this amazing blog and photos by Jessica Winder called Jessica's nature blog. I hope you readers see the amazing photos in her blog and her writeup about various creatures which can bore holes.
Also check out https://the-hazel-tree.com/2013/08/21/piddocks-anything-but-boring/
Also check out utube of worms which make holes called Giant tubeworms
Discovered on Google that these holes are caused by the bivalve called piddocks and the bore holes in the rock by rotating their shells in a circular scouring motion. I did see a bivalve stuck inside one of the holes but did not photograph it. Damn! It's amazing to me how these shells are strong enough to bore holes in these rock-solid rocks...no pun intended!. Yet these shells are brittle enough to break easily. Nature is endlessly paradoxical!
Two months after the visit to this marine reserve, I am still fascinated by the rocks with holes bored by piddocks and I keep googling. I discovered this amazing blog and photos by Jessica Winder called Jessica's nature blog. I hope you readers see the amazing photos in her blog and her writeup about various creatures which can bore holes.
Also check out https://the-hazel-tree.com/2013/08/21/piddocks-anything-but-boring/
Also check out utube of worms which make holes called Giant tubeworms
Giant Tube Worms of the Galapagos | Nautilus Live
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I am adding this bit in February 2018. My stream of thoughts about piddocks lead me to thinking about Saligrama stones. Hindus would know what these are. Saligrama stones, according to Hindu mythology are stones, generally black in colour, found in the Gandaki river in Nepal.They are, according to Hindu mythology, drilled by worms called Vajra Keeta, who live in these stones. Vajra means diamond, implying that these worms, have teeth, strong as diamonds and able to bore holes in rocks as hard as granite.
Science later proved that these stones are ammonites and you can read the details in the article whose link is below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Shaligram. It's a long article and also talks of the different mythologies around stones with holes and around Ammonite fossils such as Greek, Norse, Celtic, Hindu mythologies.
You can read a blog by a person who got the Saligrama stones at the link below
http://www.veda.harekrsna.cz/encyclopedia/muktinath.htm
Jessica Winder, the author of Jessica's Nature blog would be horrified by the steady depletion of the Ammonite fossil stones in the Gandaki river in Nepal by people. I am torn between longing to find and own a Saligrama from the Gandaki myself and guilt about depleting the fossils from nature. Imagine the joy of finding in nature, something millions of years old!
The article whose link is below says that the Saligrama stones are drilled by the Vajra keeta worms.
https://krish1973.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/where-the-saligramas-are-found-and-what-are-they/
As a child, when my grandmother told me about the Vajrakeeta I believed and loved the stories! The discovery that they are Ammonite fossils stripped the story of the beautiful magic and destroyed my joy....but what to do? Truth works that way.
As a child, I had also believed in the existence of the Nagaratna, supposedly found on the hoods of cobras. And you know what? I always wanted to find a dead cobra and get the Nagaratna!
Now, though I am a jaded adult, a part of me still craves for the the magic of mythology. I wish that the Vajrakeeta and Nagaratnas are for real! And now, the discovery of piddocks revived the possibility that Vajrakeetas may exist! Hip HIp Hurrah!
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