Aki trots lightly over these slick beach rocks but I must move head down, with caution. I can’t even relax while crossing the flat planes formed by half buried stone. An almost invisible algae coating makes them ice treacherous.

Caution over rocks provides an unexpected benefit today. Moving slowly means moving quietly so I easily hear the growling conversation of a pair of sea lions just off shore. Later I hear a whale exhaling and look up to see five more spouts following the one that got my attention.  At first they appear far off but then one sounds and I see clearly its flukes rise then slide into the calm sea. There are not Killer Whales as I first suspected, who might be hunting sea lions this time of year.

While I watch the whales Aki finds something primeval to roll in and then keeps a distance from me the rest of the walk. Not knowing that she has anointed herself with beach perfume I wonder why she has become standoffish when the whales distract me again. This time one of then breaches— a half hearted sideways launch of his body into the air. Then they disappear.

Moving on, head down I find a great jelly fish spread over grass and gravel on the beach. It mimics the Birth of a Cosmos by Hubbell Telescope. No other creature offers such rich warm colors this deep into winter. It beached itself on the edge of a partially buried field of rolling gray stone with veins of white quartz.  The field rises to a sharp edged hump near the high tide line. Is it the skin of a sleeping dragon partially exposed by the last storm tide? If Aki were a child I might explain how Dragon, tired from a flight across the Pacific stretched out on the beach so the sea could massaged its back with pebbles rolling in the surf. Then Sun broke through Clouds to warm Dragon to a sleep so deep he won’t wake until needed by Man.    

Aki, still keeping her distance, scampers over the dragon’s back. I keep off it, preferring a belt of gravel recently exposed by the ebbing tide. Minutes pass. When I look up Aki stands before  a set of ice falls suspended beneath the exposed roots of some hemlock trees growing at the top edge of the beach cliff.  Aki growls. She does that when unexpected shapes cross her pass. If she were a child I’d tell her that the ice pillars were formed by seeping water freezing to other ice during the subzero weather of November.  If she were a fanciful child I would call them ornaments made for a giant’s Christmas Tree