Here, we’re looking at a quiet nook during low tide in Blue Hill’s Conary Cove on Thursday (September 3). It’s raining lightly in the Cove and on us, but it’s the kind of rain that’s pleasant to walk in – a dying rain with clear air visibly coming to our rescue from the east.
The granite ledges and other rocks that surround this Cove are a haven for Knotted Wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum), which is one of our “Rockweed” species. Rockweeds are forms of seaweed that attach themselves to rocks and float up as the tide rises; they provide protection for various marine lives. Rockweeds are not true plants; they’re algae that seek external food like animals.
This seaweed and others are called “wracks” because “sea wrack” is an old name for “seaweed.” “Wrack” originally meant something cast up from the sea onto the shore. “Wrack” evolved into “wreck”; “shipwrack” became “shipwreck.” (Brooklin, Maine)