Low Tide Beach and Will Starfishes Die?

While we have a nearby beach in our town, my family prefers to travel to Anda because of its white-sand beaches, ours are mostly black sand though and we are fond of white sand beaches. Going to the beach before doesn't require any monetary involvement, we just have to show up at the shore and swim! But today, it's just different especially if we have to go to Anda. Upon arriving at the town border, we have to pay a certain environmental fee per person. I guess it's Php 10 per person now. We were 10 adults so we paid Php 100, it's affordable though but still, the point is that we have to pay. Then upon reaching the beach, we also have to pay for our cottage. That is usually the case whenever we go out swimming.

Last Saturday, our attempt to get the kids out of the house was to go swimming in one of Anda's white-sand beaches. 

Read about my introduction here: Kids Must Go Out!

I told my parents, we must avoid the beach with a lot of people on it and so when we went to our usual beach destination and it was crowded, we retreated and headed to a place where I know there won't be too many visitors - Flower Beach.

But instead of going into the resort gates, we directed ourselves to the tiny road used by locals instead. We spotted no other people at the shore but the fishermen who were fixing their nets. That was around quarter to two in the afternoon. These fishermen were either getting their boats and nets ready for the evening grind or perhaps they just came from the waters. I didn't converse with them because they were not wearing masks. Of course, no one wears a mask at the beach except for us, lol. But of course, we have to take them out as soon as we get to the waters.

After all of our stuff was brought to the shore, we positioned it near the rock wall. There are a few empty cottages but we can't use any of them because they belong to the resort, a good thing we brought a mat, the weaved one. Our food was in the flat rock while our clothes were on the mat, just t make sure it won't get wet.

The kids immediately ran towards the water, they giddily dragged their floaters, no further ado, they wet themselves and swam in! But the water was shallow because it's low tide already. Earlier today, the fishermen said the water reached the resort's cottages. We have seen how beautiful the waters were during high tide but it is okay, we can walk to the deeper part of the sea, although it would take a few minutes before reaching there. But then again, why go to the deeper part when our kids already enjoyed the shallow waters?

Also, this shallow water is an advantage because Matti could walk in it and enjoy the saltwater and sand at the same time! There were areas where there's sand and other areas where there are rocks and pebbles. Tiny fishes swim everywhere! They are like transparent fishes but their movements were visible in the water!

And starfishes were there too! My nephew Seth is fond of sea creatures so we took some out of the water so he could appreciate them, there were blue starfishes and those with spikes, we returned them to the sea after. My husband was telling us not to touch them because these creatures are made up of soft and thin tissue, they can be highly contaminated with bacteria passed on through human touch. Oh-oh! So we immediately took them back into the sea, I hope our kids didn't hurt them.

Eating was surely part of the plan, we brought pancit, carbonara, grilled pork and fish, fried chicken, bread, rice, soft drinks, some chips and ice cream too! It melted right away while we were scooping them. One local kid was passing by and was staring at me while I was happily eating my ice cream in a cup so I decided to give the remaining ones which were in the container. She showed it to her siblings and I could hear them shout ice cream with happy faces!

We went back to the waters after filling up our tummies. Time to burn those calories added! Matti surely enjoyed his time, he is not afraid of the waves anymore and would even play by hitting it, then as it splashes to his face, he'd laugh out loud. After a short while, we decided to walk towards the deeper parts, we passed by rocks with sea urchins under them. It was necessary to wear slippers, these urchin spikes might poke us but it was easy to avoid them as they only stay under a huge rock. They settle in those rocks and since they are dark, they were visible and the water was clear enough to let us know where these creatures were.

The parents complained it would take us more time to reach the deeper area, they suggested we could just stay where we were at. I had no problems with that though so we camped at this spot.

That spot allowed us to see a wider view of the beach resort as well as its neighboring shorelines. It was almost sundown, golden hour has come and we spotted more people at the shore this time, most of them were coming from the shoreline next to the resort, some were walking and bending down, hunting for shells and fishes. It reminded me of our childhood, we used to go shell hunting and would cook it for dinner.

It was time to go back to the shore when Matti's feeling sleepy already. He didn't have his afternoon nap so he sure is now dozing off. The rest also stopped swimming but not the two nephews who just stayed at the shoreline and enjoyed each other's company. We let them play around until it was time to go home.

The kids were all knocked down on our way back to the house. We ended not eating dinner instead as we were all full!

xoxo,

mommy jean of momentswithmatti

Love harder than any pain you've ever felt.