I read recently that although blogs have few rules, one should always endeavor to post regularly. Hah! Collecting beaches is a hobby. Sometimes work, family, or even other hobbies, can intervene. Sometimes I fall behind. In some cases, I simply don't get to the beach. In others, I get to the beach, but can't seem to find time to post. In the last month, my shoreline trips have been few (and often gray and drizzly) and my distractions have been many, so a number of potential posts have simply stacked up in a pile of JPGs on my hard drive. I will try to dribble a few out over the next few days.
This is the first of two posts from Birch Bay - collected on a trip to Whatcom County several weeks ago. Birch Bay opens to the west onto the Strait of Georgia and its inner shoreline forms a broad crescent, formed and reinforced by refracting waves. Longshore drift along the bay's beaches is generally from south to north, helping to explain why the mouth of Terrell Creek is deflected almost two miles north by a long spit.
The stream-mouth spit begins in the State Park, but its northern half was developed ages ago and is lined with beach houses and bulkheads. The encroachment of the structures across the upper beach is probably due in part to how they were originally built and in part to the progressive erosion of the beach itself -- either way, there's not much high tide beach left along here!
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