I saw the above post on Facebook, and it made me very nostalgic. I grew up spending loads of time on these very same beaches, and I remember collecting all these beautiful shells. We used to find so many large ones as well as these tiny ones, all intact. I still have some of them in my tiny memento box:
As teenagers, we used to make necklaces and bracelets with these shells.
I am not sure whether it is because I don’t spend day after day on these beaches anymore, of if things have changed, but over the past years I have never almsot no entire, undamaged shells anymore, particularly these tiny ones.
On the Wild Coast of South Africa (particularly at Bead Beach in Morgan’s Bay), we used to find carnelian beads from various 1600s shipwrecks, mostly Portuguese. I have heard you don’t find that many any more though I guess after more than 400 years it is not surprising.
Another treasure for us was sea beans, also called drift seeds. They were large beans that were used by local witchdoctors for their muti (medicine). They felt so lovely and smooth.
Photo from Wikipedia
One thing we loved finding were red plastic drift cards. These were released by researchers from different places, and when you found one you could post it back to where it came from, stating where you found it and when. This helped scientists study currents and winds. Here is what they look like
I have heard that you don’t find these things as often anymore, but that could be because we don’t spend huge amounts time on the beach anymore, that we don’t walk as far as we used to, and that (in the case of drift cards) there are other methods these days.
One good thing is that the amount of plastic on the local beaches is minimal. Something here and there but not as much as you would think, given how polluted the sea is.