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[Kaljaia]

We're coordinating our beach trips with the storms.
Heavy surf and strong wind on Wednesday, when we went up to repair the floor of a 100 year old family cabin. That repair job is going to get much bigger before it gets any smaller, as the rot was much more extensive than anyone had thought (and prior 'nail it on' repair work has to be all ripped up and done over right this time.) After crawling around under the cabin with my dad for a while, mom and I escaped to the low tide of about 5. Not great for tideflats, but perfect for mid-tide rock hunting.

We went to the lighthouse point for wood, as there's more fresh drift there now than there's been for years and years; most of it is roots washed out of the bluffs, with some immense trees and one rather creosote-laden telephone pole. Better rock was found by Norwegian Point, however, a small public-access point beside the tiny general store. It's on the south-east-facing curve of the inner crescent and got lots of (comparatively gentle) wave action, but doesn't see the driftwood that the lighthouse point gets.

After my afternoon with Frank, I'm trying to watch for the kinds of rock he pointed out to me. I confess I should have been writing cards with the names as he told them, and photographing them with the rocks; my mind remembers what I see better than what I hear.
But I'm going to take a stab at it.

Variolite, for the green with the dotted patterning, gabbro for what looks like granite but isn't, and olivine is the yellow-green in the last picture?
Also the pink in the third picture is new to me. I keep thinking Rhodonite because pink, but don't know if that's correct.

[ToTheSummit]

You guys get such a great variety of rocks up there.  And the driftwood is an excellent bonus!  It must be nice to hunt rocks on the beach.  Everything has the skin knocked off from rolling around in the surf and they are already wet.  When I'm walking through the desert and everything underfoot is covered in the same desert varnish it can get a little maddening.  Nothing but drab, dark brown/black rocks for miles.  Thats why we always have to carry a rockhammer in the desert, you gotta knock a chip off anything that you are interested in picking up.  And it helps if you carry a squirt bottle of water to wet them down.

[Kaljaia]

I started in the desert, Summit. Tell me about it ;) we didn't know what we were looking for for years, and then only picked up the most obvious specimens. Didn't know to carry a rock hammer or squirt bottle until my last summer there. But then, I've been wandering this beach my whole life and am just now starting to look for rock on it too! Seeing the stones is a learned skill, in either environment.

[lithicbeads]

I think I need a speargun. I was on the beach yesterday in the wild weather and a big shark came cruising by  the beach with it's dorsal fin out of the water. It did not eat any of the local surfers while I was there.

[ToTheSummit]

Sharks.  Now that is one hazard we DEFINITELY don't have while rockhounding in the desert! 

[Kaljaia]

Just scorpions, rattlers and black widows, right? :D Lithic, if you noticed me always flipping a rock when I picked it up and handing it bottom-side up, that's why. I'm used to there being a momma widow under every rock. They're big enough to warrant spear-guns too.

[lithicbeads]

I remember my first eastside hounding trip when a friend collected the small scorpions from a pre-existing hole and put them in a small vial and gave them to my 6 year old son.A little unusual to say the least for a wet sider.

[ToTheSummit]

Lived at the beach at times in my life.  Learned to surf.  And I'll tangle with a scorpion, 2 black widows and an angry rattler all at the same time before I'd want to meet up with a shark intent on sampling my flesh.

[Kaljaia]

Eh, these sharks up here are little. Spiny Dogfish are annoying but less prone to finger-gnawing. They're about as acceptable a target as a coyote and a lot more numerous. Aside from the dorsal spines, they're mostly just a danger to one's patience. I have a few dorsal spines around in a jar somewhere, from when people would kill the dogfish and toss the bodies back while out fishing. (they're beside the box of rattlesnake rattles and the pickled scorpion.) Apparently they make good eating if prepared right, but the only guy I knew who would take the time was also something of a character and people wouldn't try the meat because he teased that it would be poisonous if not prepared just right.

I think you win with that Grizzly-guarded conglomerate of yours though, Frank!

[LithicStrings]

We lived on dogfish while in grad school and are still here.  Very tasty. 

[Kaljaia]

I wouldn't mind trying it some time, just preferably not from someone who joked about poison in it before serving; I've heard that it's like the mythical horse-meat burgers, in that if you've had really good fish and chips, it was dogfish.

[lithicbeads]

What lithic strings did not say is that one night while fishing from the pier in down town Seattle with shark gear she hooked and fought a 13 foot shark up to the pier where it lay exhausted below us. We could count the pilings to measure it's length. We cut it loose.