A Swirling Proposal

On a COASST survey Saturday afternoon Meghan and I were the only humans on Spruce Cape beach. The beach is ringed with black rocks that make walking anywhere but the sandy surface a bit challenging. As I conducted the survey, walking down the length of the beach in an S pattern (like skiing) looking for birds, I pretended to find beach objects and put them in my pocket. Meghan sat with Rebel on the rocks near a tide pool. The sun was bright and warm. Offshore, fishing skiffs skimmed across the horizon, gulls squawked and dove to the sea. On the return leg of the survey I began to carefully prepare the contents of my pocket to show Meghan, four pieces of sea glass and a gold ring. I reached Meghan and knelt beside her, balancing on watery rocks.
“Hi Meggie,” my heart pounded “I found some cool stuff on the beach.” I held out my palm holding the precious pieces.
“Let’s see. Oh wow, beach glass. Wow a ring. We should return this, someone is probably looking for it, but cool beach glass.”
My heart stopped, “Meghan, maybe it could be your ring.”
“Oh no, it won’t fit me. It's too small. Someone is definitely missing it.”
“Meghan, I'm pretty sure no one will be looking for it. I think you should have it.”
Meghan’s expression then changed. “Bruce…”
“What do you think? Will you marry me?”
“Yes, Bruce.”
Meghan was completely surprised. After sitting together and enjoying the moment we walked out to the tide line on the rocks while peeking into tide pools. Anemones, chitons and crabs revealed their shapes and seemed to congratulate us as we hopped, rock to rock.

COASST

On Sunday Meghan and I participated in the University of Washington's Coastal Observation And Seabird Survey Team training. COASST is a unique citizen science program intended to monitor changes in marine environments through identification and data collection of dead sea birds that have washed ashore. Basically, we walk the same beach once or twice a month and record data on any birds that we find. During the training we learned how to identify birds by measuring their tarsus (leg) and beak length. (In case you were wondering my "beak" is a full cm longer than Meghan's.) Soon after Sunday's training we conducted our first survey. Although we did not record any birds, we did see a seal and young humpback whale offshore. We'll certainly let you know if we find a bird - we have to take pictures and send them in.

Meghan "COASSTing"