Today we had a beach day on the sands of Useless Bay.
Useless bay is called Useless bay because when it was discovered it was found that it was too shallow for big ships to anchor.
We found several sand dollars while there and learned they are rather common, especially at low tide.
Sand dollars usually live from six to thirteen years. They are considered marine animals and their natural predators are fish such as Cod and Flounder. A full sized sand dollar is about three to four inches across. The ones we found were all about three inches except for the baby ones which, for the most part, were all less than an inch across. The live sand dollars are brown/gray/black and there feet are usually moving if they are still living.
The first time we went to the beach, the tide was coming in and we only found a few sand dollars. Then we went the next day at low tide and found dozens. At low tide there was also seaweed everywhere! For maybe fifty feet in the shallows there were clumps and clumps of seaweed everywhere!!!
At high tide there was seaweed everywhere but not as much as at low tide.
Besides finding sand dollars we made some nice houses out of driftwood, seaweed and sand, all in all we had a great time at Useless bay.
We also had fun in the tide pools. I had baby crabs 🦀 crawl all over my left foot and adult crabs (at least four of them) 🦀 were hiding under my right foot!!! They seemed to be the duck and cover type of crabs versus the battle hungry type.