Since we arrived in September of last year, we've only had about 3 or 4 beach days or afternoons. Now, growing up in Erie, PA, going to the beach was a "given." You go to swim, to have a birthday party, to watch the sunset, even to ice skate (in the right season, of course). Here in Mérida, the beach is about 20-25 minutes away. Yup, that's it. And we can count the number of times on one hand that we've actually taken the drive to enjoy it. I'm hoping that number increases dramatically come summertime ;-)Here's a look at the beach close to where we are - the gulf side waters of the Yucatan Peninsula. Remind you of anything? Lake Erie maybe? Granted, you can't taste a photo - believe me, the flavor of the water is nothing like the lake, but I'm suprised with the resemblance in other aspects.
Oh, and you won't see any sunsets over this body of water - we face the north. Ok, there may be a few more differences - for one, the wildlife. Can you name these creatures?The Yucatan is known for the great flocks of flamingos that migrate on the gulf side. We look forward to seeing more of these pink feathers in the future - apparently they can be seen by the 100s in certain areas along the gulf side of the peninsula (where these photos were taken). We have
plans to go to a new beach today - maybe that's why I'm thinking about it so much. There will be more photos to come, of course. I can't remember what the name of this sea creature is - if you know, please comment. This is only it's shell, but we found quite a few like this on the sand during our visit.
5 comments:
Hey, Kelly! I actually thought that was a picture of Jonathan on beach 11 (in Erie, of course) before I read your comments. That's eerie (no pun intended). :) Hope you had fun at the beach. By the way, is it a horseshoe crab?
Hi Kelly, your creature is a Horsehoe Crab.
Horseshoe crabs are among the world's oldest and most fascinating creatures. They are estimated to be at least 300 million years old. The earliest horseshoe crab species were crawling around the Earth's shallow coastal seas for at least 100 million years before the dinosaurs even arrived (which was about 200 million years ago). Since that time, the Earth's land masses have shifted dramatically, thousands of other species have come and gone, but horseshoe crabs have survived and today remain much as they were those millions of years ago.
Horseshoe crabs have been used by people for centuries. More recently, they have been instrumental to scientific research that has contributed significantly to human health. Still today, when people see for the first time this strange creature with an armored shell and spiked tail, it is often with trepidation, along with the question, "What is that thing?" Meet the remarkable horseshoe crab!
Love your cousin, Terri
Thanks for figuring out the name for me! And we did have fun at the beach and in the pool. What a blessing to just take an afternoon and play! The kids found some cool sponges and shells on the beach and our new friends even found a starfish, but no horseshoe crabs this time :-) We also now know of a great place you can come to vacation on the beach near us . . .
Hi!,
Just to let you know a good new... there are sunsets in the beach in the Yucatan!. Yup. And there are sunrises too. Because the coast is facing north, you can see both sunrise and sunsets and both are beautiful, specially sunset...
Enjoy.
True, you can see the sunset, but I'm still looking for the beach where you can see the sun as it sets directly over the water, like on Lake Erie. We've visited Progresso, Sisal, and Chicxulub, but my guess is that we need to go somewhere like Celestun. I'm sure we've only just scratched the surface of the coastline here in the Yucatan :-)
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