Pretty hot here on Skinny Island today until a nice sea breeze kicked in around mid-day. Substantial humidity accompanying.  Not complaining, mind you, just reporting.  We’re thinking summer weather is officially here.  Slow start to turtle season.  I spoke with the turtle patrol folks this morning and they said there was just one nest in this area, about a mile north.  Nothing south all the way to the lifeguard station.

Shark's Eye

This is a Shark’s Eye sea-snail (neverita duplicata), another somewhat rare find this intact.  They live in the shallows and move through the sand in search of clams, which they consume in a quite amazing fashion.  The snail covers the clam with its foot and secretes an acidic juice to soften the shell.  Then a tooth-studded tongue injects a digesting enzyme, and later extracts liquid clam. They breed in the surf zone by mixing their eggs with sand to make a gelatinous sheet that cures into a rubbery collar, which we find washed up frequently.  These look manufactured, and for a long time we thought it was something dumped off ships.  The collar is hydrodynamically designed to stay upright in the surf, then begins to disintegrate when the eggs hatch.  Another little marvel.

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Sand Dollar

Because of the rough surf, here’s how we find most Sand Dollars, though we have found a few whole.  The ones found the most intact are covered with little barnacle crust, which I guess gives it added structural integrity.  It is a burrowing echinoid (Echinarachnius parma), and is mobile because of hundreds of little cilia that propel it over the sand. They are related to sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and starfish. Live ones are soft, pliable, and fuzzy, with a thin skin quite dark in color, while the cilia can be green, blue, violet, or purple.  The eat tiny organic stuff.  Its mouth is on the bottom, at the center of the petals.  The skin disappears when the creature dies, the exoskeleton becomes quite brittle, and is bleached white by sunlight.

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Aloha

Our ukulele arrived today, and we are busy learning how to play the thing.  We figured it was time to go there for a little island music, plus it’s handy to carry when travelling.  “Santa Catalina” is our first selection.  You know, “Twenty-six miles across the sea, Santa Catalina is a waitin’ for me. Santa Catalina, the island of romance.”  Then we’ll go after some classic Don Ho.  Old dog; new tricks. We’ll see.  It ain’t nothin’ like the geetar.

Aloha, y’all.