142. Bring a Sand Dollar Home Without Breaking It

This past summer I went on a vacation to Gabriola Island for a week.  One of the Northern Gulf Islands off the coast of British Colombia, Canada. To get to the island we had an hour flight from Calgary to Vancouver, then a fifteen minute flight to Nanaimo.  From there we took a ferry over to the small island with 5000 residents, Gabriola Island.  I traveled with my best friend, and we stayed with her aunt while we explored the island.  There are a few bucket list items I crossed off during my stay, this post will discuss one of them.

When visiting California a few years ago, my sister and I each found a couple sand dollars, but on the flight home, they broke in our luggage. The moment my friend's aunt mentioned sand dollars she had found the week before on a local beach, it became my goal to find one, and bring it home safely.

One of the mornings we got to Twin Beaches just before low tide, with rubber boots and bags to look for sand dollars.  It didn't take long to spot the purple and white disks lying in the sand.  I was surprised to learn that sand dollars are originally purple before they die, the turn white after death.  There were thousands of sand dollars, both purple and white; I was worried about stepping on them, they are very fragile.

It didn't take long to find dozens of beautiful sand dollars.  When we returned to the house, the sand dollars were left outside in the sun, which bleached them from a off yellow to white.  I have an underwater camera, which I talked about in 120. Use My Underwater Camera Underwater; it was perfect for this vacation by the ocean.  I was able to take pictures of my finds under water.  The bottom picture is a photo of my friend and me looking down at the camera while it was beneath the water's surface, while we looked for sand dollars.  The coast is a beautiful place to explore, sand dollars were only one of the many creatures we looked for.  The atmosphere on Gabriola was peaceful and relaxing, the perfect vacation.