A Clovelly Childhood #3

  Looking at photos on the Fish Hoek Beach Facebook page of the many moods of this much-loved beach brought back memories of days gone by.
  On windless, sunny winter days, which seemed so frequent when we were children, we would get up before dawn to go down to the beach to look for paper nautilus, the delicate egg case which bears the young of the pelagic octopus and which is washed into False Bay by the Agulhas Current sweeping down from the tropics. These delicate shells would be stranded on the shoreline at low tide, at the mercy of plundering gulls hoping to find a tasty morsel inside. If you didn't get there before sunrise, the shells would be pecked and no longer perfect.
  It was like a treasure hunt as we ran along the beach to see who could find one, mostly being disappointed after reaching down to pluck it from the damp sand to find it already damaged. They were few and far between and most times there were none, but we still have a fair-sized collection in my mother's shell cabinet from those days.
  But the greatest treasure of all was the freedom to run barefoot along one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, leaving us with a view of life as it should be and a benchmark for our future dreams.