Shells Anyone?

When Paul and I were packing up for our return home to Canada, we realised that we had collected way too many shells and we could not possibly take all of them back with us. So one evening we sat down and sorted through them and decided to take the "rejects" back to the beach. It was a very difficult task as each shell was special in its own way, but we did it. We had a pail and shopping bag full.

For the past couple of weeks there had not been many shells on the beach but at the end of March we had high tides with the full moon and several beds of shells appeared at the high tide line on the beach in front of our balcony. We thought this was a good place to deposit our "rejects" hoping that they would find a good home. While I sat on our balcony enjoying the sun and camera in hand, Paul set off to the beach with the pail and bag of shells.

Just as he finished dumping the shells, the first beach combers came along so he explained that we had collected these shells, some from our shelling trip, and we were recycling them back to the beach. The couple picked through and took the ones they liked, and off they went down the beach.

After Paul returned, we sat on the balcony together to see if anyone else would enjoy the shells. One of the tenants from our building, who had been sitting on the beach, was next to come along.

She filled her hands and quickly went back to her beach chair to drop them off and by the time she returned to shell bed for seconds, another couple had come along to take a look.

She quickly turned about and summoned her husband to come help. By the time he arrived at the shell bed, several other people had appeared to look.

The husband took off his hat and filled it with shells, as another couple walked off with their takings.

Then another couple stopped to have a look and took what they liked.

And yet another couple...

Paul and I found it very interesting to sit on our balcony and watch the behaviour of all these couples.

Later that afternoon when Paul and I set out for our beach walk, we checked the shell bed where he dumped the shells and there was not one shell to be seen. The couples had taken every last one - so we were very happy that they all had good homes.

Remember these shells were our "rejects". Imagine if they had seen the gems we kept to take home!