The sandy beach at Ormond is different every morning, depending on the tide, the weather, the winds. Every morning we walked the seashore, but unfortunately, there's a huge volume of garbage washed up on the sand every day, especially after a stormy night and a high tide. We filled a couple of shopping bags with junk every day. The worst offenders were plastic water bottles and lids. And remnants of balloons attached to indestructible plastic ribbon, just waiting to wrap itself around the legs of seabirds.
The oceans of the world must be full of discarded plastic. How sad.
Sunrise over the Atlantic can be stunning.
Of course,
The Space Cadet claims to do his best work by the ocean.
The Atlantic was a bit chilly, but that just makes me scream louder when the big wave hits.
When faced with acres and acres of sandy beach, it's compulsory to build a sand castle, isn't it? Spot was a great help. He carried the heavy buckets of sand and collected the shells for decoration.
And I valiantly defended the castle from the incoming tide, just like fabled
King Canute.
Unfortunately, it was gone the next morning, washed away by the waves. Oh well.... easy come, easy go. I hear that Canute didn't have much success either.
Once the castle is built, it's a good excuse to catch up on a bit of light reading.
The view from our little Beach House at night, the full moon illuminating the water and the light of a fishing boat on the horizon.
She has Poodle and Golden Retriever ancestry, and I'm told she is known as a Goldendooodle.
Everyone was instructed to stand well back to give the birds plenty of room, and the cages were opened. Watch out! Here they come!
A little confused as to what to do next. Why are all these humans staring at us?
But eventually all the birds waddled towards the water and stood there, probably assessing the situation, while the admiring crowd waited for some action.
These brown pelicans are surprisingly large, 42-54 inches in length, and weigh from 6-12 lbs and have a wingspan from 6 to 8.2 ft.
As soon as the gulls flapped their wings and took off, the pelicans got the message and followed. A huge cheer went up from the crowd.
Great work by the dedicated Marine Science Center staff and volunteers.
Of course, The Space Cadet claims to do his best work by the ocean.
When faced with acres and acres of sandy beach, it's compulsory to build a sand castle, isn't it? Spot was a great help. He carried the heavy buckets of sand and collected the shells for decoration.
The view from our little Beach House at night, the full moon illuminating the water and the light of a fishing boat on the horizon.
We drove clear roads all the way to Florida and back... that's 5,000km... and the only traffic jam we encountered was half an hour from home. Typical Toronto traffic!
We walked in the door at 8:30pm on Wednesday, and I've been unpacking, doing laundry, opening mail, paying bills and returning phone calls ever since.
The view from the sofa....
.... and the view from the outside looking in.
Thanks, my faithful blogger friends, for visiting this blog while I'm away from home. I'll be checking everyone's blogs out when I get back to Canada at the end of the month.
Meanwhile, the Florida sunshine is back and we're being Beach Bums. Ahhh... retirement is pretty good.