Gifts from the sea

I was in a hurry for yesterday’s morning walk. I had to go out and leave the house by 9am, so I set off earlier than usual. I was immediately stopped in my tracks when I came across a number of scallop shells, joined onto green slimly seaweed, at the high tide mark. Some of these had already been ravaged by the seagulls, but there were a number that had not, so I gathered them up, yanking the seaweed off with my foot with each one. Some were obviously dead, but I figured, rightly or wrongly, that that would have only just occurred, so they were probably still all right to eat. I couldn’t believe how many of them there were, and being earlier than usual for my morning walk, I was probably the first person down that stretch of beach. After I had satisfied myself there were no more, I headed to the shoreline to search for some there and was rewarded with a further four, which I ended up giving away to an out-of-towner who was asking me where to find pipis.

‘’Plenty of tuatua,’’ I told her, pointing out the area where these were generally found.

I set off home and just had time to shell my scallops before I had to leave. Had I not been in a hurry, I would probably have checked through the waves, which is the general method of finding the scallops. We have been gifted these treasures on several occasions, generally two or three days after an easterly storm. The rain we had last week didn’t seem that bad so not sure where this lot had come from. I haven’t seen the scallops attached to the seaweed like this before either, so perhaps they were from another bed.

Generally, there is stiff competition, with seekers searching through the low-tide waves after any such storm, but this time, I seemed to be the only one aware of their existence. Lucky me. Sometimes there are hundreds of people, with most of us only getting a handful.

I also found a couple of tonna shells, one in good condition, the other broken.

I fried up the delicacies for my dinner last night. Stephen didn’t want any – all the more for me. I haven’t got sick, so my call to eat all of them probably a good one.

This morning, I found one more. Not enough for a feed, but enough for a very small snack and to remind myself just why I love scallops so much.