Beach Finds at Rhossili Bay 2

The character of the beach changes as you walk along at Rhossili. I started at the Hillend access to the shore near Llangennith in the first post of this series yesterday. I walked north towards Burry Holms. The flat surface of the sand transitioned into sculpted hollows and wet sand ripples, pock-marked by recent rain, giving rise to different patterns and textures. Among the Spaniard Rocks, the exposed dark olive fucoid seaweeds seemed to have suffered from the earlier very hot weather but bright green algae wrapping rocks lower down looked healthy. Noisy gulls congregated on rocks projecting into the surf and the sea was banded a wonderful green and blue. In places, successive generations of barnacles smothered the rocks, with older shells eroded with pit marks caused by infesting endolithic lichen. Small rough periwinkles hid between the barnacles and inside empty ones. Even the mussels on the rocks were covered with barnacles. Further up-shore the limestone exhibited an array of compositions, colour, and wear, from stratum to stratum.