This time we picked up the sand dollars right in the water as they were being washed ashore.  It looked as if they just glided in underwater.  Sometimes they were left on the sand, but other times another wave would take them back out, if you weren’t quick enough in picking them up, that is.  We did manage to get ten of them; that beats the previous record of eight.  (So, of course we ran into a family who said they found fifty on the beach at Ft. Clinch last April!)

I saw a little whitish shrimpy critter scurrying along the sand at the wave line with a little one hanging on to it.  But by the time I got the camera turned on and focused it dived into the sand and disappeared leaving a little hole.  Well, now I know what makes all those little holes I’ve been seeing.  Must be what the birds go after, too.

And then…as I came even with a group of people looking at what a boy caught while fishing from the beach, I saw that it was a sting ray.  It was off the hook and on the sand; the dad pulled it by the long spine back towards the water (apparently it’s a bit heavy) and then tossed it in.  It landed upside down so he waded in and turned it over.  And with a graceful undulation of its sides it headed for deeper water.   The way they move through the water is absolutely beautiful!  I had no idea that sting rays were so close to shore, I guess I had just assumed that they were much farther out there. 

The ocean is awesome.