Wrack Line 2020

October 17, 2020

Trail through an Ammophila monoculture to the beach
What treasures await?
Freshly beached specimen, upside down, on clean wet sand
Chrysaora fuscescens, Pacific sea nettle
Freshly beached specimen, right side up, on clean wet sand
Aurelia aurita, moon jelly
Surfgrass, mole crabs, and a white feather on clean wet sand
Different ecosystems come together in sea wrack
Freshly dug burrows is clean sand
Beach hopper diggings
Old growth stump high on the beach. View out to the surf zone
An old friend
Pelagic barnacles on a fairly small diameter drift log
Lepas
Just a trace of a bull kelp stipe left behind by hoppers diggings
Beach hoppers make short work of a bull kelp stipe
Mytilus trossulus, blue mussels, on a drifted piling
Death in the drift
Just a claw on clean dry sand, surf zone and a headland in the background
Dungeness pinching claw
***

August 20, 2020

Right side up molted carapace on wet sand
Dungeness crab carapace
Molted main body and legs on wet sand
Dungeness molt?
Upside down carapace on wet sand
Dungeness carapace
empty shell on wet sand. There might be a bore hole on the visible valve.
Siliqua patula, Pacific razor clam
Two valves, still connected, showing a lot of blue beneath the periostracum, which is mostly eroded. On wet sand.
Drifted Mytilus californianus, California mussel shell
***

August 19, 2020

View as the trail drops down onto the beach.
Sea wrack treasures just ahead
Big drift log with lots of large pelagic goose barnacles
Hitchhikers | Lepas
A small drift mass with all the usual stuff, surfgrass, seagrass, crustacean shells, and feathers
Wondrous sea wrack
Dungeness crab pinching claw
Pinching claw | Metacarcinus magister
Freshly dead razor clam, empty shell on the wet sand
Razor | Siliqua patellae
Six thatched barnacles partially buried in sand
Thatched barnacles | Semibalanus cariosus
California mussel shell, both valves
Drifted from the rocky intertidal | Mytilus californianus
Sea wrack, full of diversity
Lots to identify here
A molted carapace, top side up, with a couple nice barnacles on it
Dungeness carapace | Metacarcinus magister
Bleached test, oral surface facing up
Oral surface | Dendraster excentricus
Just a salmon-colored exoskeleton on wet sand
Exoskeleton | Emerita analoga
washed up with some surfgrass
Moon jelly | Aurelia
An epiphytic coralline on seagrass
Melobesia on drift Phyllospadix
Just a drift mass of surfgrass with some Fucus and Sargassum
You never know what you’ll find in the sea wrack
***

July 14, 2020

Molt of the hind part of the shrimp on wet sand
Smooth bay shrimp molt | Lissocrangon stylirostris
About a 12" of trail, fairly close up, on wet sand
Pacific mole crab trail | Emerita analoga
A small tangle of drifted surfgrass on wet sand
Drift surfgrass, Phyllospadix
Carapace, right side up, on wet sand
Molted Dungeness carapace | Metacarcinus magister
Molted exoskeleton, sans carapace
Dungeness crab molt | Metacarcinus magister
A single stipe and blade on wet sand
Laminaria sinclairii
Gruesome scene on wet sand. Dead female left behind with only its eggs eaten
Birds excavate female Emerita to eat only their eggs | Detached telson, upper right
***

July 13, 2020

Trail down to the beach, thru the beachgrass on a sunny morning. Narrow bank of offshore clouds, dissipating.
Tideline treasures just ahead
Freshly washed ashore, the barnacles are good-sized and in good shape. Bright sunlight
Lepas on a drifted log
The whole thing, not super fresh, on wet beach sand in bright morning sun.
Drifted Alaria marginata
Carapace, right side up on wet sand in bright morning sunlight
Molted Dungeness crab carapace | Metacarcinus magister
Kind of close up view of the whole exoskeleton. Looks like the crab just stepped out of it's old exoskeleton
Fresh Dungeness crab molt | Metacarcinus magister
Mostly fragments of mole crab molts.
Mostly crustacean molts in night’s tideline
Looking down on 2/3 of a fired egg jellyfish. This one looks a lot like a fried egg with a broken yolk. On wet sand with bright sunlight.
Fried egg jelly fragment | Phacellophora camtschatica
A kind of oblique view of the top of a whole, and quite fresh, fried egg jelly on wet beach sand.
A good-sized jellyfish |Phacellophora camtschatica
***

July 7, 2020

Gentle paved trail to the beach
What finds await in the sea wrack?
Last night's tide doesn't have much material. Mostly small fragments from crustacean molts
Fifty paces down the beach, a clean tide line
Just a small drifted eelgrass plant on wet sand
Drift eelgrass, Zostera
Bleached test with a broken down center on wet sand
Broken down sand dollar test, Dendraster excentricus
Just a little round show (no snail) on wet sand
Purple olive show, Callianax biplicata
An unfamiliar dichotomously branching brown
A sea wrack mystery turns out to be Dictyota
Dead female mole crab on wet sand. A bird has eaten its eggs and left the rest
Unfortunate female mole crab, Emerita analoga | Birds key in on the eggs (only a remnant remains)
Jelly fragment on wet sand
Sea nettle fragment, Chrysaora fuscescens
Looking down on the crab molt on wet sand
Female Dungeness molt, Metacarcinus magister
A diverse clump of sea wrack on wet sand- lots of dead and drifted stuff
A sea wrack treasure trove
***

July 6, 2020

Not much drifted material 50 paces down the beach
A fairly clean tide line
Kind of a close up on molted barnacle feeding appendages.
The molt is on | Barnacle feeding appendages
intimate view of the molted carapace
Molted Dungeness carapace, Metacarcinus magister
A left-eyed bloke on wet sand
A stranded pleuronectid | Starry flounder? Curlfin turbot?
Pacific mole crab molt on wet sand
Mole crab molt, Emerita analoga
***

January 26, 2020

Large (like maybe 2 gal) white plastic jar
Lost jar
Aging styrofoam net float among cobbles
Fishing float
Lid to a white plastic bait jar
Bait jar lid
Just a lone drifted patch way up in the cobbles; surf zone in the distance. Moody morning in the cobbles
Drift surfgrass
Drift bull kelp way up on the high cobbles. Surf zone off to the upper left
Drift bull kelp
Shotgun shell wad
The wad
White plastic bait jar on high cobbles
Bait jar
Close up of fresh branch tip on dry cobbles
Sitka spruce branch tip
Approx 1 pint (.47 qtr) translucent white plastic squirt bottle, on high cobbles
Lost squirt bottle
line of drifted wood on high cobbles along the base of a cliff; surf zone and spruce forest off to the left
Wrack line
A large solo pelagic goose barnacle on a white plastic fragment. I wonder what its story is
End of the drift
Glassy tubeworm casings on wet sand
Tubeworm casings, Spiochaetopterus costarum
Lost pink plastic pony
Pony
Lots of small stuff washed up, plastic fragments, hurdles, feathers, tubeworm casings, forest fragments
Dirty drift
***

January 25, 2020

Atop the foredune on the trail to the beach. Surf zone just in view over an Amophila monoculture
Any treasures waiting down on the beach?
Driftline mostly small brown plant material. There's a short piece of blue nylon cord too,
Typical January drift- lots of terrestrial material
A rock jammed into the base of drifted tree of piling (hard to tell)
A lot of force went into this
Drift bull kelp, one long stipe with the float in the foreground. Blades eroded away.
Bull kelp, always a photographer favorite
Just the root nubs poking out of the sand; surf zone in the background
Upside down drifted stump, exposed
Bleached white lower jaw bone on sand, I think
Bony fish jaw?
Old growth stump, right side up, surf in the background, moody skies
Drifted stump, its base extends deep into the sand
large drift log, the base pointing up toward the foredundune
Big wrack
Purplish carapace fills most of the frame, on wet sand
Dungeness carapace
Blue plastic wall anchor with a couple barnacle hitchhikers
Plastic wall anchor with barnacles
Inside surface of a broken California muscle shell and some bubbles. Both emit a rainbow of colors.
The fire inside
***


This page was updated on August 20, 2022