Seaoats are the builders of dunes.

Feeding The Imagination In The Dunes

Sea Oats grow in abundance on our beaches here on Anna Maria Island. The Sea Oats look best in the late summer when the heads are heavy with the bounty of their golden seeds. The state that they are shown in in this section is in the winter, so the seeds are grey by now and have fallen off, just the tall dry stalks and the arched blades remain.

Sea Oats have an enormous root system, and that very fact makes them such valuable plants on the shore. The drifting sand catches on those plant clumps, building dunes.

Endless Variety Of Patterns

To walk through the dunes is not really a good idea. When I did I did so with utmost care only walking through the low parts, trying not to destroy the drifts with their sharp edges nor the young plants. This was the first and last time that I did so. But I wanted to capture the beauty of them, to this day I have not learned to fly.

The most spectacular part were the ripple patterns. The Winter winds blew hard in the preceding days, no rain had fallen, so the sand was pristine and snow like.

Endless variety of pattern making by Mother Nature.

Tapestry In Monochrome

The wind sculpted a tapestry utilizing the different surfaces of the wide beach. I love the difference in texture, for I am always enthralled by different appearances of surfaces. The artist in me can not resist pattern making.

A tapestry of shadows, foot prints and wind ripples in the sand.

Delicate Shadows of the Sea Oats

The wash board ripples of the sand reminded me again of the big dragon lying there and pressing his scales into the sand to leave an imprint of where he had slept. The sun slanted at a different angle than the direction of the scales were going, so the long shadows of the Sea Oats crossed, weaving a huge flat basket.

Delicate shadows of the seaoats.

A Whale Under The Sand?

The shapes of the dunes is of course very organic, very soft and flowing, except for the areas where the wind creates a knife edge. Here it looked as if a whale was lying under the sand. I also felt like I was walking in snow, it was very cold on the day that I took these pictures. Most people do not imagine that Florida can be quite that cold, especially on the water.

The sand looks like a big whale is burried under it.
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