Moon beach

The weather was lovely yesterday, so Mike and I drove to the beach

and landed on the moon...

Well, not really the moon. It just looked like it.

The coast was completely fogged in. The tide was way out and the shapes it left behind were nothing like I've ever experienced. Humps and bumps and crevices as far as the eye could see. Coupled with the lack of detail in the haze, it seemed the perfect setting for a sci-fi movie. It even felt eerie being there...

We could hear the waves crashing, but we couldn't see them. The mysteriousness had us moving forward cautiously. We even turned our heads in slow motion as though fearing what might be creeping behind us...

It was a totally different "beach" experience!

With cameras clicking, we continued on. I kept hoping the sun would burn through the haze. It was obvious it wanted to. At times we could feel warmth on our faces. Little peek-a-boo's of filtered sun lit dots of landscape then disappeared again.

People emerged in and out of the fog.

Sand dunes in Maine... No, wait. Maine doesn't have sand dunes. Cape Cod has sand dunes! The beach had been terribly beaten and broken this past winter. One horrific storm with record high tides swallowed the land. Popham Beach was virtually unrecognizable.

Suddenly, much to my surprise, we came upon purple sand! Its a dream for me. For those of you who don't know me well, I'm a purple freak and here I find purple sand!!! Wow. I was in heaven. How lovely it was. I wanted to take some back with me, but I had nothing to put it in. Why do we go to the beach without a zip-lock bag in our pockets? There are always little treasures we want to gather and take home.

A bit further down the beach, we saw the reason for the purple sand... Trickling from the mainland was a stream of blue and purple carving its way, like the empty branches of a tree, towards the sea. What chemicals are leaching, I wondered? Suddenly the purple sand seemed much less appealing...

We didn't stay there as long as we expected to. Afterwards, Mike and I laughed at the strange experience it was. We did have a nice walk together. Taking photos is one of our great pleasures and Mike was just breaking in his new camera. The foggy conditions created a good opportunity for him to try new buttons. Apparently his new baby has plenty of buttons to push and he always claims he's just a button pusher...

Michael McAllister, seconds before getting his feet wet...