As we came to the end of our Apologia Marine Biology course for this year, we decided a proper finish would be a trip to the beach to observe marine life first hand!  Living in the middle of Florida situates us about 60 miles from both the east coast and west coast of Florida, so we decided to visit both!  Today we drove over to Anastasia Beach, St. Augustine on the Atlantic Ocean.

          What a lovely, windy morning!  Timing our trip at low tide, we found lots of wide open beach waiting as we ran onto the sand and began our explorations.  We discovered shells, jelly fish, periwinkles, sea weed, and many, many other specimens to entertain us.  Here is Sami with a barnicle covered coconut that we found washed in on the tide.  We had a good time fantasizing about from where it had come....Cuba??....the Bahamas?? ...Miami?

Since it was still quite early, except for an older couple walking along the water line, we had the beach to ourselves.  The couple came over to me and asked if I could take their picture.  They explained that this was a momentous occasion for they had just ridden their bikes here all the way from Oregon!  Amazing!  So, as they beamed, I snapped a picture of them in front of the big, bright Atlantic Ocean.

          The sea birds were out in full force.. Pelicans, flying in formation skimmed the surf, and gulls, sandpipers and terns flew about playing with each other and searching for food.  Tucker frightened a group of birds as he came upon their nesting area and as they took wing and flew away, saw that one was lame and left behind.  It turned out that the poor thing had a rusty hook embedded in his wing and the fishing line attached to the hook was wrapped around the wing and also around the beak!  The tern was surprisingly cooperative as Kellen and I held him and untangled the line.  Eventually, the line was off and I was able to gently remove the nasty hook from his wing.  He seemed so relieved as he was released and was able to wobbly take to the air, flying over to join his family on the next dune.  What a neat feeling to be there to help when help was needed.

Here, Mr. Tern is being very still while I remove the fishing twine.

Of course, with all that water there, a few of us had to swim.  There were rip-tide advisories today, so no going past the sand bar!

          All in all, we had a wonderful morning on the Atlantic Coast!  Next week we'll give the Gulf Coast a try!