Mashes Sands

Mashes Sands is a little county park beach on the Gulf at the wide mouth of the  Ochlockonee River. We did not walk around to the river side of the curving beach, but the other way. On this cold, windy day, there were times when we were the only people we could see. This is not the Florida of condo-land fame, but our little bit of Florida, where we feel at home. However, as you will see in pictures below, the beach houses are across the bay and there are also quite a few along the river.

The white in the distance is not breakers, but the sand bar where the black skimmers were.

The shoreline is interesting and there was a lot to explore.

A little tidal creek feeds and drains a large marsh. The tide was coming in fast and the water was feeding the creek from two directions here.

There were many animal tracks that were quite clear in the soft sand and mud. In addition to the many shorebird tracks, we identified great blue heron, fox, bobcat tracks and what we think was a horseshoe crab.

The contrast of this little crab digging caught my eye. It had dug down to pure white, powdery sand and deposited it on the gray mud. There were several of these around.

This tree was close to the gulf shore and B noticed that it has had the sand washed away from its roots. See the lateral roots are now at least six feet above the present ground.

I looked at this sand and thought "contour plowing," farm girl that I am. B looked at it and thought of the Japanese gardens where the sand is raked to resemble water waves, poet that he is.

We saw several large nests, but we thought all of them were really too small to be eagles, and were probably ospreys. This one posed for me.

It was a wonderful little jaunt south.

When we go off on these little day trips in the winter, we almost invariably carry a large, Stanley thermos bottle of boiling water. By the time we need it, it has cooled a little. We carry that day's choice of hot tea or chocolate or spiced apple mix, mugs and spoons. We have found it the perfect way to thaw out in the car or truck. On this day, it was truly a blessing.