We took a ride to the beach and finally found some beans!
I found a brown nickarnut. These look like they are already polished.
This coconut has been drifting a long time as evidenced by the sealife growing in the cracks of its husk.
Tracy found her own hamburger bean.
We found some pecans, water hickorys, and other common beans.
Some rig worker likely wondered what happened to this.
We had to keep an eye on the sky and not wander too far from the Jeep.
We searched high up in the wrack line near the dunes.
We also searched the wrack closer to the surf left by the last high tide. No beans!
Here are some of the recent finds along with some barnacles and driftwood.
The beans of the day include a swamp lilly (top), some palms, a heart, and a candlenut along with a square chunk of jet.
This scarecrow must have stayed up till midnight waiting on the New Year.
You never know what you may find in the quest for beans on the beach. This snake skeleton made an interesting sight in the sand.
A single blade of cord grass whipped out this trench as the wind tickled it across the sand.
Even this little bird was dragging his toes as he made his way home.
This mermaid's purse was half buried.
I found several cool beans this day including a Mary's bean, two hearts, some burgers and palms, and an antidote vine seed. Also, I picked up some shells and coral and one coconut to add to the collection at the nature center.
First stop - the Visitor's Center. I was eager to see what they had on display.
In addition to lots of printed materials, the folks at PINS had a nice collection of beach treasures including a whole dolphin skeleton, shells, and lots of beans.
Here is the master teacher at work with two willing students.
Some of the day's finds included starfish, branch coral, barnacles, sand dollars, and worm casings.
Searching along the high dunes of PINS.
The shells in the middle are called turkey wings. You can also see some of the fresh sand dollars.
Here is the difference between fresh and cleaned/dried/bleached sand dollars.
I found my first wood rose seed (left) which looks a lot like a railroad vine seed (right) but is much bigger. Both are closely related to the Mary's Bean - in morning glory family.
Here is one last look at the display table. One of the big seeds on top is a box fruit - I want to find one of those!
