Today we had a chance to look at the flotsam and jetsam we have picked up.

We find some interesting items washed up onto the beach. We recently found part of an old wooden boat, which seems to have been built using home made copper rivets and roves.

Homemade Rivets and Roves: A roved rivet is a type of rivet used in traditional wooden boatbuilding, particularly in clinker (lapstrake) construction. It consists of a copper nail driven through overlapping planks and secured with a domed copper washer called a rove. The rove is hammered down onto the nail, and the excess nail length is then trimmed and peened over to create a tight, watertight joint.

We quite often find pumice, a light weight porous volcanic rock formed during explosive eruptions. It is characterised by numerous gas bubbles, which gives it a low density and therefore it floats. Some of the material is quite large and much of it could have travelled across the oceans for thousands of kilometres.

Then there are other rocks like coal, where it came from and for how long it has been at sea can perhaps only be told by how smooth and rounded it has become.

Occasionally Ambergris floats ashore, it is a solid, waxy substance produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Darker versions are relative young in age but they change to a lighter colour with age.

Another beautiful sunset on the western dunes.