10 reasons to take a beach walk

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Cape Creek, oregon coast. © given photography 2021

Cape Creek, oregon coast. © given photography 2021

For an exhilarating experience, take a beach walk on a cool sunny day. You’ll feel connected to a greater presence and you’ll have the place to yourself.

Beaches can range from flat and sandy to rugged and rocky to urban and wild and everything in between. They offer an easy, soulful way to spend a few hours decompressing. You can find good walking beaches not only on the ocean, but also in urban areas along bays, rivers, lakes, sounds, and straights. Here are 10 good reasons to get out there.

  1. It is the best place to enjoy solitude, especially early in the morning.

  2. Your mind will shift into questioning mode. Why is the driftwood piled at the back of the beach? What is that tangled line of seaweed and ocean debris a few feet back from the water that parallels the shoreline? Why are some beaches covered with sand and others pebble?

  3. You’ll discover an entire ecosystem made up of tiny critters and sea plants.

  4. Your curiosity will be peaked as you look under rocks or peer into small pools of shallow water. Your fascination may reveal intertidal life such crabs, snails, sea stars, limpets, and sculpins. Low tide is best for this kind of exploration.

  5. You’ll notice how beautiful the sky is as gulls soar and swoop.

  6. You’ll be breathing those wonderful health enhancing negative ions that are generated from splashing water.

  7. You will become an amateur birder as you grab your phone to try and figure out the name of those bobbing and diving ducks with the cute little faces.

  8. You will definitely leave wanting a pair of binoculars and field guide for your beach bag.

  9. If you time it right, you’ll witness an absolutely outstanding, mood altering sunrise or sunset.

  10. You’ll feel so much rightness in the moment as you walk. Fleeting thoughts and sensations of oneness, love and connectedness. You are experiencing the uplifting power of nature.

**That tangled line of seaweed? It’s called a wrack line and is washed in with high-tide, but stays long after the tide recedes.

A few tips for you…years ago I volunteered for our local Beach Watchers program. We learned much about the importance of beach etiquette. Consider these while beach walking and exploring.

  • Please leave all living organisms in their native habitat where you find them on the beach.

  • Walk with care to avoid injuring plants and seaweed. Plants and seaweed prevent erosion; provide habitat and hiding places for intertidal organisms. They also provide food for many animals and insects.

  • Step on bare spots as much as possible.

  • Overturn rocks with care, if doing so. When finished looking, return them gently to their original position to avoid crushing anything that lives underneath.

  • Kneel quietly by tide pools, taking care not to walk in them or put your hands into them.

  • Fill any holes you may create if digging for clams. Piles of sand left on the beach can smother other organisms.

  • Leave creatures attached to rocks, rather than removing them for study, since removal may kill them. Since it is natural for them to be attached, more can be learned about them by observing where and how they choose to live.

  • Enjoy anemones without prodding them. Anemones will often squirt water if poked, but this can kill them because they need that water for survival until the next tide covers them.