Beachcombing: Sand Through My Fingers

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
William Blake - Auguries of Innocence

I’ve written about Beverly & Greg becoming psammophiles or sand collectors. The word psammophile can also be used to describe an animal that prefers to live in the sand ("sand loving"). I am sure that my two friends are truly missing the warm sandy beaches of Saipan so it is not too far fetched to call them as such. I’ve been collecting small samples of sand to send the two every time I beachcomb. So far I’ve about 13 samples and only missing samples from a few beaches on Saipan. Take a look at some of the samples:

HIDDEN BEACH

Hidden Beach is the northernmost Eastern beach on Saipan located in the village of Talofofo. It is a small pocket of a beach at the end of a stream. Most of the sand is composed of broken corals and shells.

SAN JUAN BEACH

DJ, TonTon & Laurina at San Juan Beach.

San Juan Beach is the most immediate beach south of Hidden Beach but the composition of the sand is quite different.

Look at it closely and you can see sizable silica crystals. Silicate rocks (SiO2, Silicon dioxide) like Quartz and Citrine, and carbonates like Calcite and Aragonite (CaCO3, Calcium carbonate) are quite abundant here to the delight of crystal hunters.


LAULAU BEACH
Black sand beaches on Saipan? Sure! I found a patch of black sand at LauLau Beach, Kagman close to where the dive cut is at. I’ve had the samples for more than 3 years thinking that they were mica (aluminum silicate). Mica usually forms in flakes but looking closely at the samples, the grains are clearly many sided.

I was using a dental scraper and noticed black sand grains clinging to the metallic tool! The sand was magnetic! The black sand in LauLau is magnetite after all: an iron oxide (FeFeO4). Magnetite is 72% iron and geologists have used their natural characteristic to align themselves to the North Pole to figure out the past movement of continents. This technique is called paleomagnetism.

There are also lots of silica crystals mixed in the Lau Lau sample as well. Sifting allows the lighter crystals to move to the top while the heavier magnetite to settle at the bottom.

Oooh! Crystals!

LADDER BEACH

Some Japanese islands are famous for their star sand and are marketed to the tourists that way. I noticed a star sand bloom a few weeks ago at Ladder Beach. Star sand are single-celled marine protozoans called foramineferans (forams for short). I often hear that there are more star sand at Long Beach, Tinian but I now believe that they are more common than we think on Saipan (I’ve seen them all over). All you need is a scrutinizing eye for their beige colored tests! Can you see the star sand? Look closer...

I'm pretty sure Bev & Greg will have nicer pics to share from their Leica cam!

COW TOWN BEACH

Go to Marpi Village, pass the landfill and follow the unpaved trail to Cow Town Beach. Here are my buddies Kevin & DJ from a few months ago. At low tide, you will see a patch beach that is full of star sand, broken corals, micro shells, and Marginopora to the left of the entrance.

I like to call the Marginopora, halo sand because of their disk shape. Marginopora like star sand are forams. Can you see the halo sand?

Here they are...

Okay! If all that talk about sand was boring to you, here is a cute picture of Hayden Lucas to make up. He is becoming quite a beachcomber and psammophile himself!

CRAB CARAPACE

I picked up a pretty crab head of what looks like a Carpilius convexus (Forskal, 1775) also known as the Variable Coral Crab. It belongs to the Xanthidae Family also known as the Coral crabs or Dark-fingered crabs.

Many Xanthids are poisonous. Sadly, I hear that they are eaten in some Micronesian islands to commit suicide.

STARFISH

I was surprised to see starfish in the shallow Saipan Lagoon. When I first saw one, I thought it accidental or misplaced. Then I found more. These are Linckia multifora (Lamark, 1816) or Spotted Linckia seastars. I often find them living in coral reefs rather than on sandy lagoons with sea grass. They are related to the much bigger and better known Blue Sea Star, Linckia laevigata (L, 1758). These stars have the habit of discarding an arm that often regenerates into a whole new sea star! Of course, we returned these animals to their respective spots unharmed with all their arms still intact.

Well, that was just a little story I wanted to share before I go to bed. I hope you enjoyed it and lets talk stories again soon. Take care and stay safe.

Ti napu.

The Beachcomber

Mind, Body, Soul

E GIRERA E GIRERA
SI GIRERA IL CUORE MIO
GIRERA IL LA TERRA
GIRERA LA MIA VITA
UN GIORNO LUI SI SI CAPRIRA
UN GIORNO LUI SI TI CAPRIRA

What’s up with the Italian today? I don’t know. I am distracted. When I’m distracted, I tend to speak in tongues. Strange? Yeah it is. Stranger still: I don’t even know Italian.

Sometimes you see something so stunning, so bright that it blinds you for a moment. You see the potential, and then you say things or do things that are clumsy or dumb. All of a sudden, I am 16 again, 5 foot 9 inches tall, at 129 lbs. I am wearing golden rimed glasses and in a memory I hear the dentist telling my dad that I needed braces. I am the last to be picked for the baseball line up. What happened? I was a superstar in a not too distant 6th grade. I am a superstar now! Why do I feel like I’m an adolescent school boy again? I feel myself wanting to retreat to the places that I found solace at: the art room, where I could draw and paint in solitude; the chess club where I find others seeking safe battles on 12’’ by 12’’ boards; the biology club where Linnaeus spoke to me in the secret language of Latin and Greek. Better yet, get lost in the forest. Or even better, the sea. Mother Nature is kind and never judges her son.

I did indulge myself in the waters of Lau Lau Bay yesterday with good company. It was beautiful. My new friends are beautiful. Today though, I thought I should have some time by myself. A little bit of quiet is what I thought I needed to once again balance my mind, body and soul. I put forth a days schedule in order to find balance in all three areas rather than just getting lost in a DVD and eating ice cream and spicy Japanese chips. No. Too many unhealthy Sundays have been lost that way.

Mind
It has been a while, but I needed to sort my working library of Crustaceans (namely, my crab head collection). Crabs are some of the hardest invertebrates to identify and label to amateurs because they are so diverse, with too many similar details, and I usually have only a few resources at hand. So, I labored a good part of the morning getting some identifying and labeling done.

I’ll share one with you: Matuta lumaris or the Burrowing Sand Crab. The neat thing about this crab is that its dactyls are all flat and paddle-like, like a swimming crabs’ (family Potunidae) fifth dactyl. The dactyl is the last segment of a pereopod (the crab’s leg). Its legs help the crab to quickly burrow in the sand. Although I have never seen one alive on Saipan, I have been able to collect some crab heads (cephalons) washed up on shore. My good friend John S. tells me that the Burrrowing Sand Crab is not yet recorded in our area by his marine biology colleagues and that I should turn in a sample to a museum. Neat, huh? Yeah! This is what I needed for my mind: a little bit of science!

Body
It has been a while since I practiced the pugilistic arts. After my mental exercise, I thought I’d get some physical exercise to get my heart pumping and the sweat running. Nothing makes me feel more alive than beating up a heavy bag before noon on a Sunday. Well, that’s not true really. All you’ve really got to do is to get me outside (or a cup of hot java) and I’ll be much alive. But, like I said it has been a while so it felt real good to move. Sure enough, I lost some technique, power and speed. What makes it worse is that I was really never too good at boxing. So today I sucked even worse.

I picked up some boxing lessons here and there a few years back when I was nursing a broken heart. My intentions were to “fix” a few things with my hands this time around which is something that is a far cry from my true character. I was just tired of being the sucker; the nice guy whom everyone stepped on; my niceness often interpreted as weakness. Man, it felt good beating something up and I visualized whose wigs I was going to split. After a while though, I felt that my anger was eating me up inside just as fast as I was developing my skills. Sure, at the time I wasn’t ready to forgive yet, but this wasn’t me. I was always more of the philosopher rather than the warrior: the open hand rather than the fist in the hand greeting that the Chinese martial artists presented to each other. After I realized that I was being consumed, I put the hand wraps and gloves down for a while to soul search. I prayed, and asked to be able to forgive and to be forgiven. I haven’t split anyone’s wig yet, so I guess I found my balance without violence. No, it’s not violence. It’s the “sweet science” as Leibling said. I am a scientist after all.

Note to self regarding Body: No more Davidoff Entreactos. You can celebrate your friend’s memory without sacrificing your lungs. Secondly, eat. You need proper nutrition to fuel your body. Your anorexia (the inability to eat, not A. nervosa the condition) is not from cholera.

Soul
What to feed the soul? Well, reading is usually good. My friend Greg, told my friend Bev about Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin Books). He lauded its contents, and so did she, so much in fact that it became one of the books assigned earlier to a book club that I joined later. So I decided to grab Bev’s copy.

I heard lots of comments amongst my circle of friends and the friends that are members of the book club. These comments made this autobiography seem like a self-help book instead: “Oh, we need more of India don’t we” or “I am so in Bali right now!” Gilbert writes about how her divorce, successive break up and depression that followed led her to seek pleasure in Italy, devotion in India and finally balance in Indonesia. I thought I’d give it bit of a read and finish at least Italy, a 154-page chapter.

It was difficult for me to read this chapter for obvious personal reasons. Of course, to get the whole story, I needed to be introduced to the struggles (the aforementioned divorce, break-up, and depression) first before the triumphs. So, I struggled through the all too familiar hurts with the author but saw her slowly finding and being comfortable with herself little by little as she indulges in the pleasure of the language, the food, and the people in Italy.

I won’t give too many details from the book for people who would like to read it. Plus I am not done yet. I couldn’t tell you if “I am in Bali” or if “I am so in India.” But now that I read the first chapter, am I in Italy? Am I seeking Italy? Am I missing Italy? Am I in someone else’s Italy? All I can be sure of right now about me is that I am more comfortable in my own skin now more than in any part of my history. I am a superstar.

Note from the book for the Soul: "Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend."

Ah, Italy! Maybe, that’s why I sang to you in Italian? Ciao, cara mia.

Thanks for letting me share.

The Beachcomber