Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Shark teeth and fun in the sun

I hope you all had a nice 3-day Memorial Weekend! It is now unofficially summer here!

We started Saturday out by having our old friends over for a BBQ. We actually met 8 years ago when I was walking our then only dog Bob. They had just gotten a puppy too, so we started to chat, and since then we have been very good friends. I think one of the reason we get along so well (me and the wife, S) is that she is not a native of this country. She was born in China and raised in Vietnam until she was 18. She is so open minded and great to have all kinds of discussions with! Her husband, J, is originally from Hong Kong. Their two daughters are 3 and 4 and just so adorable. We had a really nice time catching up on things.

Since Ken had to be at the office all of Memorial Day (Monday), we decided to have our holiday on Sunday instead. We left early and took off for Venice Beach. Venice is just about 45-50 minutes south of us, and its beaches are known to be the shark tooth capital of the world. Here you can fairly easy find all kinds of fossilized shark teeth.

The Gulf of Mexico was so perfect at just under 83F degrees (28C). We just floated around in the waves for hours, taking turns using a special shark tooth scooper that helps you sift through the sand and shells. Sarah loved it!

We took a break for lunch at the very cool, old fashioned beach cafe, they had awesome burgers there! We also took a drive down south to the more deserted Caspersen Beach, but we didn't have much luck there. This is a picture of an actual fossilized shark tooth we got at Venice Beach! We are pretty sure it must have come from a prehistoric Lemon Shark.

We are definitively going back next weekend, we have just gotten a taste of the shark teeth world! Imagine finding a Megalodon tooth? They are rare, but they do show up once in a whileMegalodons were thought to have been 16 meters long! You can see in this picture how horrendously gigantic they were compared to a modern day Great White's teeth. I wouldn't want to meet one of these creatures. There are some scientists that believe they might still exist in deep waters...

3 comments:

Saltistjejen said...

Låter helt underbart!!
Fast jag hoppas verkligen att ni slipper stöta på ngn nu levande megalodon...

Petra H said...

Åh, vilken härlig dag på stranden! Jag hade aldrig hört talas om att man kan hitta fossil-hajtänder bara så där men det är ju jättehäftigt! FÖrstår att ni alla tre tyckte att det var kul att vara "skattletare".

Anonymous said...

Urban säger att du inte har en tand av Megalodon.. den ska vara trekantig... han tycker den mer liknar en tand av en späckhuggare... är tanden i naturlig storlek frågar han?... själv har jag noll koll...

moster