This blog is about Fittie Beach, Aberdeen. Many villagers have dogs and use the beach most days, in all weathers. The beach is always changing, and there’s a huge variety of stuff that gets washed up. It’s a great place to live.

October

The sand on the beach is the highest level I’ve ever seen it, in four and a half years of living here. We had a good deposit of Fittie beach ‘sea coal’ the other day – I’ll save that story for another time! Today along the strand line there’s a lot of pink, spongy looking things, up to about 10 cm across although most are about half that. I think these are from a coral called Dead Man’s Fingers (Alcyonium digitatum), but can’t find a picture that matches any of these in the text books.

In the cold light of day, they can look quite gruesome – not just their shapes, but their fleshy colours too. It’s odd how they seem to get washed up en masse, as if some localised turbulent disaster has dislodged them all from the sea bed. The dead crabs seem to get washed up in batches too.

Dave Healy

• Category: Beach, Fittie News