Clam Field Trip

At the end of the day yesterday, a colleague asked, "there's a super low tide tomorrow around ten, wanna take the kids?" How could anyone say no.  Before I could answer she added, "clamming is a big part of life around here, it would be a good thing for the kids to see." I was in.

The day turned out to be sunny with a slight breeze.  I only had six kids with me as two were on vacation and another just moved away.  I have such a good class and having that few of them was truly effortless.

We walked around and did a scavenger hunt for things around the beach and in tide pools, though it did not last for long.  Their leader's enthusiasm quickly made the pencil and paper task a thing of the past.  Anytime I found anything great, an enthusiastic what and whoa would pop out it was hard to contain it.  Life is exciting.  There were a few people out clamming and lots of dug-out holes along the beach.  There were all kinds of neat things swimming around in the tide pools.  We saw worms, octopi, sea urchins, wiggly worms of all kinds, and clams.

One of the student's parents brought a shovel down and well, I am a clammer now.  I clam.  It was like digging for gold (I imagine--though there is a similar feeling of winning).  At first it is hard.  You have to get the shovel down in the ground at just the right angle to where it can lodge between the rocks.  Once you get the rocks out of the way, digging is much easier.  The next step is to put a little water in the hole to help the sand get a liquid like consistency.  After that it is simple.  One must practice self control; I learned that beasting the shovel in the earth only ended in a lot of smashed clams.  Slow is fast in clamming.

Spit Beach.  This was 15-20 seconds after the kids got off the bus.  They were moving so fast it was difficult to get a quick shot of them.

One of the students clamming.

Two five gallon buckets and one basket of clams.  This person had been at the beach for two hours.  The word around town is that you can safely consume clams on months that have an "R" in them.  Doing so any later could result in death and unfortunately, this sort of thing has happened here in the past.  Red Tide is what they call it, the clams eat it and then if you consume the clams during this time you're done for.  Someone said something about getting numb lips first...  I couldn't even imagine.

Red octopus.

Octopus.   This guy was slightly bigger than a baseball.

Digging for clams.  These kids were like vultures, with any hint of white their hands would shoot down.  It was funny to watch but not funny when you're the one shoveling.  I had to keep saying, "simmer down."