sugar sand, silver

sugar sand, silver

waves, brown pelicans diving,

blue and yellow ferries

Our first sight of the beach at Xaman Ha' (Maya for "waters of the north") is on a cloudy afternoon in early March. Xaman Ha', renamed Playa del Carmen by the Spanish, was originally a small fishing village and rest stop for travelers from the great Mayan cities to the island of Cozumel. Today, Playa is a busy balneario, a seaside resort on the Caribbean coast in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. It's a popular tourist city, though not as crowded as Cancún. We're staying in Alhambra Hotel, right on the beach, so naturally the first thing I do is walk in the lapping waves, laugh at the antics of brown pelicans diving for fish, and watch the blue and yellow Cozumel ferries pulling in and out of the dock.

undulating swash

undulating swash 

and backswash of wavelets mold

sinuous sand tracks

After a sumptuous breakfast at the inn near Akaroa, I walk down the country road to a little beach. The tide has recently receded, leaving the silver sand glistening with sinuous patterns. The swash and backswash of tiny wavelets breaking and receding have molded the fine sand into undulating tracks. It looks like hundreds of fingertips have pushed thick paint into wave-like crests, leaving their still-wet imprints. This tenuous finger painting will be erased when the Sun and Moon pull the waves back to cover the shore, only to be recreated at the next low tide.