Orange sunset

The sunset today was very orange. I actually missed most of it, only seeing the last glow of light on the horizon, but the little I saw indicated that what had come before was quite possibly gorgeous. There were several clouds in the sky, which usually makes for a good sunset. It's one of those counter-intuitive things; one would think that clouds make the sunset less beautiful, but a few clouds in the right place create lovelier colors, whereas sunsets with not a cloud in the sky are often disappointing (just a yellow ball disappearing over the horizon, none of the additional oranges, pinks, and purples which make a truly spectacular end-of-day show).

Another counter-intuitive thing which relates to the beach is that it's easier to find whole scotch bonnets after a hurricane or major storm than at other times. Scotch bonnets, in case you don't know, are very fragile and therefore quite difficult to find intact. They are the state shell of NC. One would think that a storm would destroy these easily breakable shells, but the opposite is true: the storms pick them up from the bottom and deposit them whole, often in large numbers, on the beach. They are actually tossed around in the surf less than if they washed ashore, and so they stay in one piece.

I wish I could say that I'm musing about whole scotch bonnets after storms because I found one after the Nor 'easter that just blew through here, but I didn't. I bet some of the really motivated shellers who get up early to arrive on the beach just before dawn found some, though!