The Carolyn Diaries : Harbors, Clay, and Seymour Tower

Hi Everyone!

This morning I got up super early, like 5:30 am, so I had a quiet morning to myself before Jes and Pete joined me. I found the mug I made Jes back in 2019 and spent some time blogging for you all. The mug has held up pretty well if I do say so myself and I was absolutely tickled pink it to have my coffee in it.

Thus far I have been foregoing walks with Tiny in order to finish blogging, however this was something I wanted to do before I left, so we made a morning of it. Tiny, Jes, Pete and I walked the entire harbor before stopping for some morning coffees; I’m really thriving here with the patio culture.

I also got to see the amphibious bus! It basically crosses the water and goes back onto the sand. Doesn’t it look like something from that old 90s cartoon the Jetsons?

We then went back home to do our clay crafts! I made a ring dish with seashells in the shape of Jersey, while Jes made an incense holder and Pete made this adorable sea glass potted plant decoration.

We left them out to dry and made our way to Seymour tower. I’m living my best princess life here as Pete graciously rode his bicycle to the hiking start point (since Ami can only hold two of us) and Jes lent me her rain boots so my feet would stay dry. At the state assembly tour we learned that there are 23 of these military towers left around the island from the original 27 that were built as defensive positions for the British against France, aka the whole reason Britain wanted Jersey as part of their territory. Our hiking start point was next to one of them, and then we played a version of where’s Waldo trying to find the others that had been painted over or hidden by trees among the shoreline. Jes was super good at spotting them!

But Seymour tower isn’t one of those right on the coast line, it’s the one waaaaaaayyyy out there! You can only go at low tide and have to time your hike correctly so that you can make it there and back before high tide comes in. It gave us roughly a four hour window, of which we used two.

Can you believe I walked miles on the sea floor?! It looks like the moon or some far out planet in space, just miles and miles of seemingly nothingness.

But there was so much nature to be found if you looked closely! We spotted tons of crabs, there were lots of worms hiding under the sand, and there were even oysters (wild and farmed). It was quite the experience, I think the part that felt the weirdest to me was when I walked on top of all the delicate shells and they were crushed beneath me. It felt like I was destroying fine china, to which Jes and Pete assured me that tons of violent ocean waves crashing upon them was way more destructive.

Poor Tiny hurt his paw on a shell and got carried part of the way there. Much thanks to the various children in my life who trained me for this moment. I was only happy to care for my tiny fur baby until he was ready to brave it on his own. Did I fall for it? 200% but everyone needs some extra love and attention from time to time.

We reached the rescue tower but I only climbed part of it because while I’m sure it’s structurally sound, I wasn’t risking it unless I absolutely had to.

A bit later and we reached the tower! We even climbed to the base of it, but there were lots of sand fleas so we quickly ate our snack and headed back!

Here’s evidence of the royal treatment, my feet were nice and dry while Jes took one for the team. But don’t feel too badly for her, last year when we hiked Eaton canyon there were 11 river crossings and for 7 of them I waded through the water with soggy shoes holding Jes’ hand so her feet would stay dry as she hopped between rocks and logs. Looks like for us that’s just what the best of friends do!