Icebergs

Spring at the beach includes Icebergs!  I'm sure they are not Titanic-sinking icebergs (though there may be that kind further out, I don't know), but they are user-friendly, kid-manageable (and manhandle-able), and quite picturesque:

Each year I've been here is different, as far as what order things happen, and when things happen.  But basically the beach is covered with snow and ice, and the ice pack extends far out over the ocean. How far, I don't know, as it's not part of my experience. I think that varies year to year as well.  But at some point, the ice pack that covers the ocean breaks off and floats farther out to sea, to eventually break up and melt, while the snow and ice that covers the beach is slowly eaten away by each tide coming up.

The weekend before last, I made it down to the beach on my skis, which is farther than I've gone yet this year. I liked thinking of it in this way: I skied to the edge of the North American Continent!  (Don't tell Colin and Julie Angus that, I'm sure they would feel one-upped.... ha ha, right, they are only the first people to circumnavigate the world using only human power (rowing, skiing, bicycling).

 Anyway, the dogs had a good time playing King of the Iceberg:

 And Fancy had to jump on and off, on and off each one:

I think Fancy calved that one with her nose! And then they got so hot they partially destroyed one rolling around on it to cool themselves down:

So this past weekend, I decided I had to bring the girls down, as I knew they would have so much fun with  some iceberg play:

 

 

You thought you saw everything in this picture, didn't you?  Well, look again.....

Eeek!  But that isn't even as creepy as this one, that kind of seems like Iris has found a child trapped in ice:

Then Esther decided to use it as her "unicorn":

 Yeah, good times. :) 

Some of the ice formations are really interesting:

Above is ice that seems to have just slid off it down onto the beach. Interesting. There was kind of a lot of that ice around -- on the tops of tide pools and such, where it was just-congealed slush, not hard enough to be ice, yet still holding together. I wonder if there is a name for that kind of ice?

And there's a chance to see cool critters in tidepools:

I haven't ever seen this kind of jellyfish before, and it was way cooler than the camera could capture.  The stripes were kind of iridescent, and I could see little cilia moving like dominoes down those stripes.  Then Draco came and put his paw in the middle of it and I think it got traumatized, because the cilia stopped moving. *sigh*