The Sea Claims its Own.

This morning as I was on the pier, I noticed a clam shell had been left there.  How or why this shell was deposited on the pier is beyond me but it was there in all its glory.  The shell was not there just yesterday evening so I assume some critter left me this gift!  Anyway, I started studying that shell.  It was obviously one that had been emptied of its mollusk some time ago.  Around the edges, barnacles had already attached themselves and were doing rather well although they were still small.  These critters have a habit of making themselves right at home on any object that stays in the water long.  It then occurred to me that in the sea, if something stays long, it becomes part of the sea.  Yes, this shell originated there but it was void of its living being and had been cast aside.  After just a bit, it became part of sea life again.  Once it housed a clam.  Now it gives stability to the barnacles. Along side the pier, several old posts are the site of an entire community of assorted critters.  These posts are literally covered with shells.   The sea has a way of claiming what is there.

All of this started me thinking about how many things must be part of the Bay and Bayou.  Things that were not intentionally there to start.  Think of how many man-made items must be down under that water, in the marsh or embedded in the soft mud. With every hurricane that has ever passed through this area, tons of items were washed from their land-based beginnings and launched into a new life under the water.  There, they would be covered with barnacles and other shellfish.  Perhaps deep under the mud, things from hundreds of years ago wait to be discovered once again.

That is the way of life here.  Not that folks are dumping tons of stuff into the Bay and Bayou but Mother Nature does occasionally with the storms.  We, humans, try to clear out as much as possible with annual "cleanups" but the sea claims its own and refurbishes what we cannot retrieve.  It makes use of the most unusual things!  This shell belonged to the sea..it still does.