I wiped away the weeds & foam. / I fetched my sea-born treasures home... Ralph Waldo Emerson







Friday, November 5, 2010

Quicksand?!?

Hi! Phew, I made it home...a scary experience at the beach: quicksand!

Who knew? [more on that in a minute...]


We had a bit of a storm and some beach flooding yesterday, the sun came out and I rushed home to walk on the beach. The flooding meant I had to walk along the dune edge quite a ways west to find a shallow place to cross to the waterline---where I was just sure treasure lies, lol.


I found a place with shallow-looking water, mostly just wet sand. Took a careful step...and sank into the sand past my knees! Cameras went flying, hat too. And of course my second foot followed to try to save my balance but no...I plowed head first into the wet sand.


Here's my only audience!


Not a human soul for miles. Luckily I was able to extricate the second foot and then scrunch over to dry sand and get to safety. But it was frightening. I'd have been there for a long time before anyone missed me.

Amazingly my cameras survived. These photos are from my binoculars with the integrated digital camera. It was totally soaked and sand-encrusted but I think it survived, the shakiness of the pix is my hands shaking after I got home! I got this camera when they were very expensive. Now you can but them at CVS for $29.99. I think I am going to get a backup, love it for bird pix. 


And yes this did happen to me once before...I took one of my kids---age 3 or 4! stupid!--- on a snowy beach hike, and sank through the snow into quicksand. That was worse, because my boots stayed in the sand and I had to walk home in the snow and ice with one sock and a bare foot! My kid was fine, of course. (We found my hiking boots that next summer in the sand...).

No more storm hikes for me with out leaving a note. 



 love
     lizzy

              gone to the beach.......