Regarding Clams

I've been feeling a bit self-conscious writing this post, because it occurs to me that maybe everyone (except me) already KNOWS about clams? Perhaps even finds them (and their habit of squirting jets of water at unsuspecting passers-by) boring?? Is this like someone marveling that milk actually comes from cows? If so…we will now excuse you to go read something more stimulating. But I was SO happy about this whole…clam…thing…that even now, I can hardly contain myself!

Let me begin at the beginning. One day the tide was very very low, with a huge swath of beach exposed. We saw lots of people out wandering around in the tide pool areas and wondered what they were all doing, so the boys went down to the beach to see. Then Seb came back all excited saying, "There are holes in the sand, and when you walk by, water comes squirting out of them!" And without even having to think about it, I said immediately, "It must be clams!" I felt instinctively that I must have read a thousand books talking about people watching for the sprays of water and digging for clams on beaches. I don't know WHY on earth I would have remembered, or for that matter, why I would have read so extensively about clamming in the first place, but I felt if I knew one thing in this life, it was that sprays of water from holes in the sand mean clams!

It was one of those abstract knowledges with no basis in reality, however, and I immediately started to doubt myself. Perhaps I was thinking of oysters. Or crabs? Were clams only in…Maine or somewhere? And WHY did clams shoot out water? And HOW? We were on our way elsewhere right then, but Sebastian and I found ourselves returning to speculation about the clams—the alleged clams—in our conversation for the rest of the day. (Sometimes I feel so pleased with myself for producing children that duplicate my own quirks.)

And, at the earliest opportunity, when the next low tide came around, Sebastian led the way down to the beach so we could see these wonders for ourselves.

Soon we came to a stretch of sand that was covered with little holes, like this. They were obviously something different than just the usual holes and hollows made in the sand by the waves.

Near the hole-y sand were some big mossy, rocky areas like this, FULL of big shells. Clam shells…we assumed.

Suddenly, as we started walking across the sand, the girls started squeaking and giggling. "Eeek, something sprayed me!" It was true. The holes were spraying us! On purpose, it seemed! Although Seb had told us about it, we were still so taken aback every time it happened. It was unpredictable, but not quite random…it seemed liked the holes were spraying you on purpose when you walked by, because if you jumped up and down in one place, or ran across a section of hole-y sand, little jets of water would come up all around you or follow you as you ran. It was so funny! But so deliberate that I also felt a little indignant about it. What right did these holes have to just squirt us whenever they pleased?!

While we were on the beach, we tried to dig down into one of the holes to find out what, exactly, was under there…but we couldn't find anything! But, it was clams, of course. Razor clams, to be precise. We looked it up when we got home and learned more about them. They can dig WAY down deep (3-4 feet) quite fast, so you have to be quick and have a pretty long shovel or something to dig them up. Here's a video we found of what the clam actually looks like when it's squirting out those jets of water (starting about the 2 minute mark, you can see what it looks like as it squirts out jets of water and tries to burrow down in the sand again). So interesting!

And of course, there are lots of cool things to find at low tide besides clams! This was a cute little crab.

I love his beady little eye-stalks!

Lots of dead crabs too, and other shells.

And lots of cool (non-clammy) patterns and imprints in the sand.

But. I'd be misleading you if I didn't admit that those clams were the best part! It was like being at a splash pad—the kind of splash pad that has responsive motion sensors that turn on the water as you go by. And maybe even better than that, because there was always the element of surprise. Sometimes you'd hop up and down and nothing would happen at all, and you'd run in a circle and still nothing would happen, and then you'd peer down at the holes in the sand curiously and suddenly a squirt of water would go right up in your face! Or you'd run across one section without incident, and then you'd get braver and run back across it, and get squirted in the legs the whole way across! We laughed so much that our smiling muscles hurt!

This green part was quite slippery, but Teddy bravely soldiered on

So…to sum up…even if you aren't digging them up and eating them, clams are fun! I'm so glad we finally got to see (or…see evidence of) some in real life!