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Monday July 10, 2006

Princeton by the Sea 2006

We returned to Princeton by the Sea again over the holiday break. This time was different then our previously reported trips in 2004 and 2005. We consulted the tide tables and found out that the first low tide that day was going to be at 9:12am, so we arrived while it was still a bit foggy. No lizards basking in the sunshine today while we were there. We also had no trouble parking in the small car park that goes with this beach trail.

We left the Dust Buster home, so we didn't have to continually worry about her barking at everything, which was a much more pleasant experience. There were some huge dogs there that day, so there would have been a lot of barking.

We were early enough to catch some strange sea creatures coming ashore. Even at this hour, there were lots of other people on the beach, either walking their dogs, or giving their children (or grandchildren) a chance to be at one with Nature.

There were literally thousands of "snail" shells washed up on the beach. We collected a couple of bags of them to bring home. I also took a small video of one that was still in use. If there are any seashell collectors out there that can tell us exactly what kind this is, I'd be grateful. I did try one of the online sites, but with no luck.

The wet weather earlier this year has caused several rock slides along the beach. We kept away from them. We were also told that there was a racoon living in a cave up near the end (where the sea fishermen hang out) and advised to keep away from that, but we didn't see that, even though Duncan had already been up in that area chatting with the fishermen.

This time we found a lot more crabs, sea anenomes and star fish in amongst the tide pools than we had ever done before. It was either the earlier less sunny time or we are getting good at this (or these creatures just don't like barking dogs).

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