Beach Head

Ballydowane On A Sunny Day

Today was one of those days when you know Spring isn't that far away, when there is real heat in the sun and the beach is suddenly filled with people who walk on, get out their phones make videos or take sweeping panoramic shots and then walk back to their cars.

My bucket and I took our time - there wasn't a lot to collect - but there were faces, fish, a yellow cactus and a chair leg, pea pods and an arrow pointing back the way it had come.

Legless Lamb Daddy

My sister found a plastic lamb on Ballydowane while she was visiting.  A couple of weeks later, I found his daddy.  Unfortunately he was legless.

Happy

A cold, crisp Spring day with just a hint of heat in the sun, a tide going out and coming in and a bucket to hold rubbish and treasures and who is to decide the difference?

On the day that Waterford

lost to Kilkenny in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final, I went down to the tiny beach near the Daligan River that seems to be nameless but you can see here.  It is a smelly beach, due to the amount of rotting seaweed but has crab claws as big as they come and a fine amount of flotsam and jetsam.  I made a few collages which is something I haven't done in ages and listened to the seagulls and the oyster catchers.

Seaweed Baptism on Kilfarassy Strand

I did a seaweed foraging walk on Sunday on Kilfarassy Strand and it was brilliant.  I am a seaweed convert, on my way to becoming a seaweed addict.  Our guide was Marie Power who was fantastic, very friendly and informative.  She has a website called The Sea Gardner which is well worth a look if you are in any way interested in the subject - http://www.theseagardener.ie/

I nibbled on dilisk, pepper dulse, sea spaghetti and carrageen straight from the rock pools and brought home a little bag of kelp, sweet kelp, sea spaghetti, dilisk and sea lettuce.  I could have brought home a handful of serrated wrack for a seaweed bath but our water turns my hair green.  I still might risk it though for the joy of a seaweed bath.

I learned that 'slawcorn' (that's the phonetic version, don't ask me to spell the Irish word) is for hard core seaweed lovers only.  I learned that sea lettuce is very high in B12 and that sweet kelp can be made into crisps.  I dried my little batch today and crumbled some into a curry and ate some there and then and I still have some left over.  There are no poisonous seaweeds on our Irish shores, you just have to ensure the water quality is good where you collect it from so once this batch is finished I could be back to Kilfarassy for more.

As a bonus, Kilfarassy is a fantastic beach.  At low tide you can walk from one small beach to another, round headlands and over rocks.  There are rock islands all along  the coast and plenty of rock arches.  Needless to say, combing was carried out and my walking was rewarded by finding a lovely sea worn hurley, 2 intact spider crab shells and an old fashioned cork float.