Turning boulders back, and the one left upside down
The September spring tides were as low as the March ones this year, and low water fell at five to nine in the morning, which meant walking down over the ledges in the half-light with the gulls complaining. The boulder field sits near the bottom of the shore, a slope of rounded stones the size of loaves and suitcases, and their undersides are the richest place on the whole coast.
Beneath a boulder that has been left alone for a few years there is a small, crowded world that only ever knows the dark: orange and green sponges, sea squirts like little glass bottles, tube worms in white chalky coils, porcelain crabs, brittlestars, and on a lucky day a squat lobster folding itself away. Turning the stone exposes all of it to air, sun and gulls. So I roll each one slowly, look for a minute or two, and roll it back exactly as it lay, watching the edge as it comes down so that nothing is crushed. Nine boulders took me eighty minutes.
On the way back up I came across one I had not touched. Somebody had turned it over, probably earlier that morning, and walked away. The side that should have been dark and wet was facing the sky, the sponges were drying to a pale crust and the tube worms had gone dull and chalky. I rolled it back. It may have been too late for most of what lived there, but a stone the right way up gives whatever survived a chance.
The list of things I leave alone has grown over nearly two years of these notes:
- Eggs of any kind, including the pale capsules dog whelks fix to the rock like grains of rice.
- Seaweed that is still attached, and anemones, which should never be prised off.
- Any boulder too heavy for me to put back exactly as it was.
- Birds resting on the upper beach at high water, which I walk around rather than through.
My alarm went at five to nine, I started back as it rang, and I was above the barnacles by twenty past nine with the tide coming in behind me, wet to the knees and pleased. Next spring tide I want to sketch the underside of a single stone and return to the same one through the year, to see how quickly its cover changes.