Driftwood

Today

I nearly missed our turning coming back from the croissant run this Sunday morning because of a big trunk washed up on the beach..... it wasn't there the previous day.

Yesterday

OK, so clearly it doesn't take much to distract me, but it's rather intriguing, where did it come from? We think it could have been a tree washed out to sea by the storm back in Tahiti a month ago. I've been trying to figure out if that works with the ocean currents, and I think it's possible (though am not 100%), there were a few tiny gooseneck barnacles just starting to colonise the trunk. As an aside I've just discovered that in the 16th century the gooseneck barnacle 'tree' was thought to give rise to barnacle geese (before the phenomenon of bird migration was understood).

Anyway this log is a gift from the ocean, much appreciated by the kids ......

As a biologist I worked on a group of weevils that have managed to colonise the remotest islands of Polynesia and even diversify across the Pacific, without having wings or any obvious means of dispersal. It had been suggested that they moved around by hitchhiking on birds, or on drifting vegetation. It always seemed hard to imagine, so it's nice to see some proof of such phenomena(though any living insects would have got a good drenching on this ride). We also frequently find pumice on the beach (a volcanic rock that is light as a feather, produced by explosive volcanic eruptions), again I have no idea where it comes from, though a likely suspect must be the active volcanoes found in Vanuatu (Yasur and Ambrym). This little lump of floating rock must have been on the ocean for a while, long enough to develop several colonies of bryozoans (small encrusting marine invertebrate), not surprising if it is actually from Vanuatu, as it must have done a big tour on the South Pacific Ocean gyre, riding the big circular current before arriving here!