Last week I announced that I would be getting more active with blogging again and I kind of regret it already. No not that I hate blogging but I discovered that I have too much material to work with. Yes, you can actually have too much. For one my dear beloved Chinese mother-in-law is giving nearly daily new material to write about. However she is just the tip of the iceberg as I have “postponed” so many other things over the past two years. Only the small trips and craziness in China is already overwhelming me! So this post is about one of our little tours from last summer when MIL was still with us in Germany.
What image do you have when you think about a beach? I’d say it is with clear blue water and white sand. All over the world the beaches are different as I especially noticed when we had our holiday in Rhodes where the beach was a stony hell with each step without shoes was pure torment. Last summer we went to a beach nearby my hometown, to Sankt Peter-Ording. It is a very popular seaside spa (they have their own sulphur spring!) and is a municipality of the district Nordfriesland in my home state Schleswig-Holstein. That beach is a bit different from any I have ever visited before as you can see in the pictures. This is because it is a Intertidal Zone, the entire North Sea coast of Germany is called Wadden Sea (including part of the Netherlands and Danmark). Twice a day the ocean decides that it fun to retreat and you can do some great mudflat hiking.
Anyhow the beach at Sankt Peter-Ording is also easy to reach by car as it has Germany’s only beach parking lot. So you just drive there and park you car at the beach. When we were at the beach there was currently the low tide which meant that we had to walk still for 20 min till we reached the ocean. MIL and my wife were amazed as they had never seen something like that nor imagined. Nathan was another story though as he was so afraid of getting his feet dirty in the mud (yes he is one picky little fellow). He also didn’t really trust the shallow waters which were filled with shrimps and crabs. The entire time he wanted to be carried except of course when we wanted to leave. Suddenly he wanted to play around and not leave anymore, what should I say – kids.
Though we were only there for one hour we had a great time. There is just so much fun you can have, especially with kids, as there are small animals everywhere. I still remember how I “hunted” down a crab the size of a golf ball and proudly presented it to my wife. It took a lot of effort and pain and in that moment a small boy passed by showing off his crabzilla. That beast was nearly as big as a dining plate! I wonder if he still has all his fingers…
Besides hunting down crabs I also tried to catch some shrimps but that was a bit harder even though there were thousands of them in the shallow waters. In the end I decided against catching any more crabs or shrimps and set them all free because I was fearing that MIL was making some sudden dinner plans involving those poor little creatures. As you might remember from this blog post I was not too happy once we got home as MIL somehow had managed to drag in half the beach in the car. That was some serious vacuum cleaning the next day I tell you that.
In case you ever have a trip to Germany and are for some weird reason in the North I recommend to check out the Wadden Sea. It is just incredible what Nature is doing and to see with you own eyes how the water retreats beyond eyesight. Where to witness that spectacle is all up to you as it is magical at any spot at the Wadden Sea.
What interesting beaches have you visited?
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That is super impressive low tide.
I’ve been to beaches all over the U.S. The water is the most beautiful off of Hawaii, but Florida is the warmest. The Pacific water is unbelievably rough, especially compared to the Atlantic, and very cold.
Although, even in August in Maine, the water is so cold a lobster could eat your toe off and you might not notice.
The low tide is really intense here. That whole area used to be land till 1362. After a huge storm much land was lost but still big islands and certain landmass persistet. However another storm in 1634 pretty much took care of the still exisiting land and these days only few small islands remain.
The Pacific water is surely rough/ cold, still remember learning about it in High School and watching some documentaries. The North Sea is pretty shallow so it warms up okayish in the short summers here
With all the whiteness around us now, thinking of a blue,sandy beach is so tempting!
This made me miss our place in Kuwait. The Arabian gulf is literally my daughter’s playground. From my favorite runs along the shore and our weekend walks with some picnic and sunset watching,everything seems so beautiful, life was different. Also when I open our window,we have a sea view.The waters glistened like diamonds on a clear day. Watching the waves is one of my favorite too.I kinda missed it really.
Totally different here that we really need to go far to have a glimpse of a beach.I am sure that we will have a blast as soon as our feet touches the powder sands once again.
Hope you write more, it’s always great to read your escapades.Regards.
Ín Finland we didnt live too far away from the sea either however there are nearby no real beaches. Most of them were rocky beaches e.g. huge rock formations and boulders instead of sand.
The good thing these days is that we live between the Baltic Sea and North Sea so during summer time we can decide just which way to go (in case w ehave time!)
Walking so far out to the water reminds me of growing up in Wales when the tide was out and my mum, brother and I would have to walk through the mud. We called it ‘granny’s custard’. Great memories. Thanks for bringing them back.
Oh yes, there in Wales are also some interesting tides. I only saw it thus far here in Germany and over in Denmark several years ago
Oh that is something really interesting! I’ve never been to such beach before 🙂 And so many animals? That is neat! My boyfriend would start collecting everything too, haha. If I ever go to North Germany I will remember this place.
There are not many animals to be found on Polish beaches here.. just a few shells here and there. But the sand is really nice and white. My favorite beach ever has to be one in Crete that I visited last October. I’ll put up blog post about it soon, but it was just unreal. It was surrounded by white limestone cliffs, looked like a river and the water was very blue and very deep! Perfect place to jump from the cliffs 😀 It was actually quite wild too, off the tourist radar I’d say. To me water is more important than sand for a beach. 🙂
I bet in the water you also find some interesting animals at the Polish beaches at least at the German and Finnish baltic coast I was trying to find some crabs always and swim through schools of fishes
That is incredible to be walking 20 minutes in the soft sand and mud to actually reach the ocean water there. Some long stretch of low tide. I take that it is very slippery at this stretch and if you don’t put your foot down right you can slip and end up very muddy all over very fast.
I think you should be thankful MIL only dragged half the beach into the car with her. What if she dragged in a few of those crabs and shrimps but of course, let’s not go there… 🙂
Beach is not my go-to destination as many beaches I’ve went to I find the sun too hot or the wind too windy. Last time I was the beach was one called Half Moon Bay and as you may have seen on my latest blog, it looked pretty good with a blue sky all over. It was a beach that you could take two hours to walk one way. Funnily enough I found myself sinking into the sand a lot (I was walking barefoot and with slippers on it was worse and more stumbling) but the other beachgoers around me didn’t seem to have any trouble walking upright.
The mudflats are actually not slippy at all. It is a rather nice feeling to walk through on warm summer days.
About sinking in the sand I guess it is just practice. I remember during one training camp in Turkey we had to run each morning half hour at the beach. The first days were so hard but day after day we got better in it 🙂
My knees felt very bad the longer I walked in the sand :S But as you said, maybe you get better at it the more you train at it. I cannot even imagine running in the sand. Running in the sand, I imagine falling over 🙂
Perhaps you might fall but practice makes perfect as in any other aspect in life. I remember reading somewhere that it takes 10.000 hours to master a Skill! But I’d say walking or running will only take few days to get used to 🙂
We also have high and low tide in the beaches in the south west of Spain but not so huge as this one haha. How long does it take from highest to lowest?
It is about 7 hours if my memories from school are still correct. The thing is though that the high tide comes very quickly and you better be on shore again otherwise you are in big doodoo
Oh, then it’s like the normal tides… it must be super fast, yes!!
Jep too fast to outrun it. Walking between the islands is a big activity there during low tide but also dangerous as those islands are several kilometres apart