We walk about a kilometre east of the campsite to a small beach, stopping on the way to look at the huge saw‑toothed leaves of the agave or century plant. This American cactus spends most of its life as a rosette of long, spiny‑ended fleshy leaves which contain a store of water. After ten or fifteen years it sends out an extremely long, thick flowering spike. The flowers are yellow, but they quickly develop into tiny plantlets which drop to the ground to replace the parent plant which dies soon after.
Jim picks up some of the large stones on the beach and crabs scuttled away from underneath. They are dark brown with fine pale vermiculations and hairy legs. We don't have a field guide to crustaceans or seashore life.
There don’t seem to be many birds around: herring and black-headed gulls, and sandwich terns over the sea, black redstarts, house sparrows and chiffchaffs on the beach ‑ one of the latter picking things off algae covered rocks, possibly small flies. When the tide goes down we are able to walk back to the campsite along the shore, and on the way see blackcaps, sardinian warblers, finches and thrushes in the scrub up on the cliffs.
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