Things We’ve Seen at Manzanita Beach

Eberle & I are just back from a lovely three days & four nights at Manzanita. Our rental was located right at the very edge of the dunes on the south side of the village; the weather was mostly glorious—we arrived & left in the rain, but otherwise the sun was shining on the ocean by day & the moon by night. There were just enough clouds to make the sky a spectacular canvas, & we were able to explore the beach quite thoroughly, even as far south as Nehalem State Park. Of course, each beach is a world of sorts—the features are often generic—surf, sand, flotsam & jetsam, but always have some unique elements. Here are some of the things we saw—both generic & unique—on Manzanita beach.

• Small succulents growing out of the sand
• A large driftwood log charred black at the root end & still smoldering
• A red Bic lighter almost buried in the sand near this log
• Broken crab shells—both bodies & claws
• Broken clamshells
• Broken mussel shells
• Broken sand dollars
• An intact dead crab, smaller than my thumb
• Jellyfish
• Gulls wading at the water’s edge
• Gulls flying singly or in flocks
• Pelicans flying in flocks & landing beyond the breakers
• Crows flying & walking along the sand
• The breakers becoming a brilliant foamy white as they catch the eastern sun in the morning
• Breakers turning a glossy orange as they catch the setting sun’s spreading glow
• The sunset
• The moonrise
• Feathery white clouds & fluffy cumulus clouds
• A river of gray & orange clouds streaming off to the south as the sun was setting
• Three boats well offshore, each seen singly
• The light from a distant boat on the horizon at sunset
• Two bicyclists
• Two women in full riding attire on horseback—the chestnut horse striding along the water’s edge has a relaxed gait; the black horse seems tense & skittish
• Any number of dogs—running, digging, fetching balls, etc.
• A tepee made out of driftwood, with a pallet as a floor, & hung with long decorative strands of kelp
• A driftwood fort on top of a dune
• Sand dunes, mostly thick with various dune grasses
• Small shreds of kelp, looking vaguely like excelsior in Easter baskets, caught by the wind & skittering across the sand, leaving small tracks behind them
• A middle-aged man flying a kite
• A middle-aged man constructing an elaborate sand castle with square turrets
• An abandoned sand castle with a feather capping one of the round towers
• A middle-aged couple embracing—both somewhat portly
• Various declarations of love carved in the wet sand
• Gull feathers
• Long strands of bulbous kelp
• A deer
• Horse hoofprints
• Deer hoofprints
• Dog pawprints
• Gull clawprints
• Human footprints, both with shoes & barefoot
• Dandelions
• Windsurfers
• A paddle surfer
• A man pushing a stroller
• A toy hockey puck
• A piece of white plastic marked with wood grain, such as is used for fences
• A bench made of Trex boards with a pressed metal salmon as the back
• A trashcan made of plastic wood-grained boards, almost the color of redwood, with two metal gulls on top
• A man in a wet suit wading into the surf to take photos of his son on a boogie board
• The son carrying his blue boogie board into the surf with a shy or desultory gait
• A girl, apparently his daughter, sitting in a red wagon at the water’s edge
• A young girl wearing a melon-colored hoodie running down to the water’s edge & holding a multi-colored ring, which she alternately used as a frisbee, a hula hoop, or simply held around her waist
• A white metal sign almost buried in sand—the faded black letters once read “Dune Restoration Project”

Eberle & I took over 150 pix—I really don’t recall which of us took the pix accompanying this post