SHINY ORANGE SHELLS

I rode my new bike to Blue Heaven Beach today. It's my favorite place in Cape Charles. You could almost say I have a love affair with that beach. The story will come out slowly, I'm sure--more than a decade of obsession with the Chesapeake Bay, the sun, wind, boats and barges, seaglass, dolphins, ghost crabs, gulls and pines.

Pedalling through Bay Creek, I enjoyed the pine needles spread like a fragrant carpet beneath rows of  fall-blooming azaleas. Fucia vibrated in the shade. The knockout roses still blossomed electric red. Idyllic.

Just past the Coach House, I rounded the corner and KABAM! Earth moving equipment. Big, noisy machines were digging a gigantic hole in the Bayview Village field, and piling dirt on top of the hill (which had been created years ago by digging other ponds). A landscaping crew cut truckloads of small wild cherry trees off the distant dunes.

I guess the Beach Club is finally evolving from vaporware into drainage empoundments. Dickie loves to move dirt. I walked around the neon orange perimeter fence, and was surprised by the size of the construction footprint. I haven't seen the plans, but if my eyes don't deceive me the Beach Club is going to be built on a heightened hill, surrounded by a big parking lot and acres of constructed wetlands. You can see over the dunes to the bay from that vantage point.

I parked my bike near the PortaPottie and cut through the dunes. Blue Heaven was sunny and very warm for the end of October. Six pairs of footprints traced the tide lines, but the beach was empty. A helicopter hovered in the distance (as usual) and one lonely deadrise trudged toward the Cape Charles harbor.

What did I find on my beloved beach? Lots of dead horse shoe crabs, three tiny pieces of seaglass,
and a bunch of orange oyster shells. They must have been dyed by rusting crab pots, or a long lost iron anchor.

I'm not disappointed. Sometimes, when people make fun of my business, I say I'm spinning straw into gold. It's a satisfying process, turning found objects like seaglass or shells into art. I have my share of the glass. Now, maybe, I'll make something out of shiny orange shells.