I wanted to relax so I drove out to the ocean. Choosing Ross Witham Beach at the House of Refuge, I figured late in the day it wouldn’t be crowded so I could have the beach all to myself. Well, that was not to be the case.
Once I walked past the Anastasia rocks, the beach was covered with hundreds of strange looking sea slugs specifically known as Atlantic black sea hares. They had washed up on the beach by the hundreds or thousands. These seemingly shell-less mollusk are named “hares” because they have rhinophores that look like droopy bunny ears. These bunny ears are used for smell, taste, and finding a mate, although interestingly enough apparently they are “simultaneous hermaphrodites.”
Beached they are blob-like, but swimming they are as graceful as an angels. Some on the beach were flattened like pancakes and they baked in the sun. I picked one up that looked completely dead but it moved about in my hand – so strange – like ripples in water – leaving a small purple stain in my palm. “Don’t you want to return to the sea bottom and eat more algae?” I inquired. The sea slug sat silent once again releasing purple ink into my hand.
“Wow, ink, like an octopus.” I mused, and tossed the little snail into the sea.
I turned south and kept walking keeping my eyes on the horizon. If I lowered my head for even a second I saw more sea hares, some in the waves, some on the shore, some dry and shriveled all the way back at the high tide line.
“I did not come here to spend my time throwing back sea hares” I said to myself. “Nature’s tough. Some make it, some don’t…. Just keep walking…..You need the exercise…..”
A little voice inside my head said: “What’s wrong with you Jacqui? Don’t you remember the Starfish Story?”
“Yes, of course I do.” I answered myself.
In fact I knew the story by heart:
One day a man was walking along the beach, when he noticed a boy hurriedly picking up and gently throwing things into the ocean.
Approaching the boy, he asked, “Young man, what are you doing?”
The boy replied “Throwing the starfish back into the ocean . The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.”
The man laughed to himself and said, “Don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make any difference!”
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said,
“I made a difference to that one.”
I heard loud and clear: “It’s a Sea Hare Story…”
So I began collecting the sea hares, little ones, medium sized ones, big ones, almost dead ones, freshly delivered from the sea ones, and then one by one and sometimes in groups, throwing them back into the ocean. In many cases the waves just brought them right back, but if the timing was good, a few went out to sea out beyond the churning waves of the shoreline.
It wasn’t the walk I had counted on, but I’m glad my better angel prevailed. It is always so temping to give up.
