After early morning rains, the art team got a late start on the beach project of the day. The picture above shows most of the outlines in place. Below, one of the artists is working on some of the detail.
It was interesting to see this talented group of people work. They could make make a perfect circles in the sand freehand with a stick. Notice that it's a chilly Sunday morning, and big coats and gloves are appropriate beach wear.
Once the outlines were finished, the army of rakers came to start the shading that will make the artwork easier to see.
They have a larger-than-usual palette to work with this morning, because Bandon Beach is experiencing one of those negative tides that we are learning about.
We were on this beach at high tide a couple days ago, and we can't believe the difference. There's twice as much beach to walk today. This cave-like area was filled with water when we were here two days ago.
We took pictures on the beach two days ago, with the ocean lapping up on the rock Mark is standing on. It's also completely encircling the rocks in the distance.
So we tried to take pictures in the same location on the low tide morning. Even though the sand still has a wet sheen to it, there is no water in those areas now.
Looking down the beach in the opposite direction, water is completely encircling Mark and the rocks in the distance.
But they are high and dry this morning. It was like going to a completely different beach!
Face Rock is still surrounded by the ocean, but we can get much closer to take the same picture.
The coolest change in the beach is that all the bases of those sea stacks are dry enough to walk around. That means that all the animals that hang out there are also high and dry.
Not only did we get to stand next to those sea stars, but it was so easy to take pictures of them without any water reflections in the way. These are big guys, about the size of Mark's hand.
This sea star was glad to be mostly submerged in a tide pool, with several of his anemone buddies.
This picture perfectly shows the anemone's reaction to ocean water. The open animals stretching their tentacles in the bottom of the picture are under water, while the closed up upper anemones are suffering until the tide returns.
We are really enjoying our ocean experience, and we think tide pools are so interesting. This one picture captures many of the different animals in one pool. We have wandered into another of God's wonders!
This sea star was an unusually bright purple, so we had to take a picture. In case you are experiencing sea star overload, know that we saw more than 100 of them today. It took great restraint to narrow them down to just a few pictures.
We are loving our Bandon Beach! Just to put the perspective of how huge these boulders are, Denisa is standing between a couple that were in the water last time we visited this beach.
The low tide means it is a longer walk to the water for this surfer today.
We've said it before, but we are easily entertained. For example, we found this lumpy section of beach very interesting.
Each one of those lumps is made from a sand crab that was temporarily uncovered from the incoming wave. Thousands of them were making tracks to get themselves back under the sand as quickly as possible. So the sand was literally crawling as they burrowed down before the next wave uncovered them again.
This is the under-side of one of those tiny sand crabs. These are the same little crabs that we watched a fisherman use as bait to catch surf perch. It's hard to imagine how many of these guys are under the sand we are walking on.
We meandered back to the sand art project that is now completed. Besides being interesting to look at, it also has a purpose. It was carefully planned and orchestrated to be a one-way walking path. Those twists and turns are a continuous path that makes an interesting (though some times dizzying) half-mile walk on the beach.
When we climbed the steps back up to the cliffs, we took a picture of the completed art project in the sand.
The high tide will come in later today and erase it, but for now the Sunday afternoon crowd is enjoying this temporary attraction.
These cliffs over Bandon beach are a great place to do some whale watching. This is the right time of year to see the Mother gray whales escorting their new calves back north for the summer. They frequently travel within a mile of the Oregon coast as they migrate. Someone pointed out that a whale was not far from the beach, so we excitedly grabbed the camera and the binoculars. We happily watched as the whale's back popped up and then vanished over and over. After thirty minutes and thirty pictures, we finally had to admit that our migrating whale was not moving. This was actually a flat black rock, that was occasionally uncovered when a passing wave hit it just right. Rats! We still haven't gotten to see a whale on this coast.
Around 8 p.m., we headed to our beach at Bullard Beach State Park. It was a chilly evening, so we were geared up in heavy coats and gloves. We found a perfect place to watch the sunset out of the wind on the sand dune.
We have heard about a strange phenomenon that happens as the sun sets over the ocean on a clear night. There can be a flash of green light that lasts for only a moment. We kept our eyes peeled for the green flash.
Perhaps it was the tiny band of clouds right at the horizon. But just like the whale sighting, we were skunked on the green flash sighting today as well. It's a good thing we enjoy a good sunset even without a green flash.
It was another great time in Bandon, and we're glad we were able to add one more day here. We'll sigh as we pull out of the campground tomorrow morning, but we have more adventures planned ahead.
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