Category: beach

Huge, and dead.

By far the biggest DTOTB (Dead Thing On The Beach) we’ve ever seen. Interesting that a week or so ago I paused for some while watching a flock of birds diving for fish 100 meters offshore. From time to time I saw what looked like a fin. From this sea lion? It was about the same location.

I haven’t been back to the beach since (that’s now our alternative, not main, dog walk) to know current status. As it was, I made a point of walking upwind of it. I’m not that curious.

Dog adds to waste pickup

The beach was quite filthy today, with a mix of organic stuff—shells and some kind of eggs—and the ubiquitous plastic.

For some reason (it not being tourist season), beach cleanup crews had been at work, as evidenced by the bags everywhere waiting for the tractor that will carry them away. So of all of that expanse of beach, where do you suppose my dog decides to take a shit?

You’re right if you said on top of one of those bags, and not only that, exactly where someone will reach to pick it up.

You really have to wonder.

Almost invisible surfers

Just a nothing-special view of the ocean. Until you look closer…

..and see some surfers…

…and some more surfers…

…and some more surfers…

…and yet another one—or is it two?—surfers. This was after 5:30 in the evening; no doubt many had already left. The parking lot where I stopped was full.

Engineering the Solís Chico

A year ago—as for a long time—Parque del Plata faced over a kilometer of surf beach that was inaccessible to casual beachgoers. Then someone had an idea. Instead of shoveling away the dunes that completely blow over the Rambla (beach road) every year, and hauling them in dump trucks to make a beach further up the rio Solís Chico…

..make a new mouth for the river. And then…

…add another land bridge (now wider), and just like that, Parque del Plata has almost a kilometer of new ‘ocean’ beach.

Pretty darned clever. But stay tuned. The Solís Chico is always changing. As we get into winter, I suspect it’s not going to be happy with that right-angle turn for long. But perfect for summer!

BTW, I feel obliged to put ocean in quotation marks, because—despite there being no flow along the shore, and no opposing shore—the Urguayans insist this is a river, not the ocean.

Changing waters

This is what beachgoers in Atlántida had yesterday afternoon: brown fresh water waves, a patch of salt water twenty meters in, then more brown fresh water until about 200 meters out.

This because the brown fresh water of the Rio de la Plata moves up and down the coast depending on currents. At best we get greenish ocean water, but never the real blue of further east.

Little brown waves still take a little getting used to.