It's hard to exaggerate how thick and aggressive these beach bloodsuckers can be. They can find any spot of exposed skin and will try to fly up your nose, in your ears, and under your hat.
Luckily, they reside mostly up in the dunes as the constant breeze at the water's edge keeps them at bay but if you are foolish enough to go "back there", a cloud of them will follow you until you kill them off.
The best beans have recently been found in the wrack line from the big storm where it breached the dunes and flooded the sandy washes and areas between the sand and the sea.
We started back to search and quickly began to question whether we could stand it or not. We had some spray back in the Jeep but Tracy decided to go to the water's edge instead and search for shells. I on the other hand am not as wise and thought I would stay in the dunes as long as I could to search for the elusive beach beans.
I found several "golf balls" or sea coconuts. These are fairly big and easy to see even when waiving, swatting, hopping, and generally doing the "Matagorda Mosquito Dance".You can see that these are pretty cracked and crumbly. I tossed them back after the picture. If the outer shell is not broken, these can be polished to a glossy luster. I'm working on one that I will post up when it is finished.
Here is the final stash of keepers. One Starnut Palm, one Tropical Almond (a nice specimen with much of the husk intact), one that I think is a Water Hickory with it's husk intact, two Red Hamburger Beans, and one Sea Heart. You may also notice in the back of the picture, the rare Star Studded Super Ball that I could not pass up.
I had several battle scars from this trip. I must have been bitten by at least a hundred skeeters and seem to have escaped malaria and West Nile virus for now. I may have to consider the consequences the next time I get a chance to dig in the dunes!
1 comment:
I think one of those is an old Titlest I lost.
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