COASTWATCH 23

Knowing BeansAbout the Beach

B Y J U L I E P O W E R S

“Always, then, in this flotsam and jetsam of the tide lines, we are reminded that a strange and different world lies offshore.”From The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson

C o n t i n u e d

Every so often, when the whims of windand water coincide, tiny travelers bearing history,myth and mystery come ashore in North Carolina.

These little ocean-going envoys are calledsea beans, and though many of them really arebeans, they do not come from the sea itself. Theyare seeds from tropical vines, plants and trees thatgrow in faraway rain forests. They fall into thestreams and rivers of the lower latitudes, and thewater carries them to the oceans. There, sea beanscan float with the currents for hundreds orthousands of miles, and for many months,sometimes years.

When the tides land them on our sands, theybecome the delight of discerning beachcomberswho have learned to look for more than seashells.

“They could be from almost anywhere inthe world,” says sea bean collector Sherry Whiteof Morehead City. “That’s part of the fascination.Your imagination can just run wild.”

Sea beans, indeed, have been firingimaginations worldwide for centuries. EarlyEuropeans thought these drift seeds floated upfrom underwater forests, and believed themendowed with curative — even magical —powers.

Certain sea beans have a curious counte-nance adding to their appeal. The hamburgerbean, from vines along the Amazon, looks justlike the entrée but for its dollhouse dimensions.In some countries, it’s called a horse eye. Onewould expect the sea purse to snap open and spillout minute coins. Costa Rica’s monkey laddervine produces the valentine-shaped sea heart.Mary’s bean, also called a crucifixion bean, bearsthe impression of a cross on one side and a womb-like image on the other.

These and more can be found on North

Photo by Edward L. Perry

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Carolina shores. The book, World Guide toTropical Drift Seeds and Fruits, says 22 varietieshave been counted in the Carolinas.

But because most sea beans are brown andsmall and wash in with seaweed and otherflotsam, they are easily overlooked. And manypeople, like White, publicity coordinator for theNorth Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores,don’t know what they’ve found when theyencounter their first sea bean. A sea heart shediscovered at Cape Lookout about 10 years agopiqued her curiosity. She was fascinated whenshe learned what it was.

“The mystery is what’s intriguing,” she says.“And how far they travel.”

A WORLD VIEWSea beans come our way from the Carib-

bean, South America, Central America and thesouthernmost Florida Keys thanks largely to theGulf Stream, the north-flowing river within theAtlantic off the East Coast. The beans turn up asfar north as Cape Cod, though they becomeincreasingly rare north of Cape Hatteras.Southeastern Florida beaches, on the other hand,are a collector’s paradise, given the proximity tothe sources.

Some sea beans are trans-Atlantic voyagers,reaching the United Kingdom, Norway,Greenland and Iceland. In the days before oceancurrents were understood, sea beans gave rise tomuch lore and legend, as well as practical ormedicinal uses.

The sea heart is said to have a hand in worldhistory, inspiring Columbus to search for thelands to the west whence they came. The seaheart is still called the Columbus Bean in theAzores, some 800 miles off the coast of Portugal.

The Irish put sea beans under pillows tokeep the mischievous “little people” away. OnScotland’s Hebrides islands, sea pearls, alsocalled nickernuts, were worn to ward off evil.Mary’s bean held special meaning for the devout,and the expectant. Hebridean mothers in laborclutched a Mary’s bean in hopes of an easydelivery and a healthy infant.

In old England, sea hearts were goodluck charms for seafarers because they hadweathered a long ocean journey. Babies teethedon the flint-hard coating of the seed, about thesize of a silver dollar. Early Norwegians breweda tea from the sea heart husk for women givingbirth, and made medicine for cattle from thebean’s insides. Some folks halved sea hearts,

hinged the joint and made them into snuff boxes.In modern times, some collectors polish sea

beans for jewelry. Others puncture the outercoating and cultivate the seeds into indoor plants.Most, though, simply keep them as reminders ofthe ocean’s wonder and the lands that beckonbeyond the horizon.

ANY DAY CAN BE BEAN SEASONUnlike seashells, sea beans are not an

everyday find on North Carolina strands. Adedicated beachcomber might pocket only afew per year, making them all the more special,some say.

“I think that’s the wonderful thing about seabeans,” says Capt. Ron White of Morehead City,who conducts ecological sailing charters to CapeLookout National Seashore. A marine biologist,he also has sailed Caribbean and Florida waters,and gathered dozens of sea beans since his fathergave him a lucky bean — a sea heart — fromCuba as a child.

When a strong southwest wind sends ashorethe sargassum often floating in the Gulf Stream,White says, he looks for sea beans. The varietyhe finds most often is the sea coconut — a dark,round, lightweight palm seed, also called a golf

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TOP: Hamburger sea beans and podBOTTOM: Hamburger sea beans

TOP: Mary’s sea beansBOTTOM: Mary’s sea beans

TOP: Nickernut pod and sea beansBOTTOM: Nickernut sea beans

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COASTWATCH 25

Biologists Bobby Clark, left, and Michael Hopper have worked on Sea Grant projects at the Pamlico Aquaculture Field Laboratory.

ball, that grows in threesomes in a knobbycapsule. Sea coconuts, sometimes still in theirpeculiar-looking pods, and other sea beans float alittle higher than the seaweed.

“A strong southwest wind in the summercan bring in a treasure trove,” he says. “If youlook above the weed line, you’ll find them.”

While sea beans often ride in on a strongwind or a storm tide, offshore conditions canbring them on a calm day as well. SomeFloridians consider fall sea bean season — someplants shed their seeds then, and hurricanes stir upthe waters. Because they can drift for months,however, sea beans can appear year-round.

LOOKOUT FOR SEA BEANSNorth Carolina’s northernmost and

southernmost beaches both sometimes have seabeans, according to the state aquariums atRoanoke Island and Fort Fisher. By mostaccounts, though, the currents are kindest tocollectors around Cape Lookout. The GulfStream comes closest to our coast there, and itsdynamics make surrounding beaches thedestination for tropical tidbits.

“The stream is really a strongly meanderingset of flows, with some meanders forming eddies

FOR MORE INFORMATION:• www.seabean.com has sea bean background

and details on the Eighth Annual InternationalSea Bean Symposium and Beachcombers’ Festival,Oct. 10-11, Cocoa Beach, Fla.

• The Drifting Seed newsletter, P.O. Box510366, Melbourne, FL 32951; also available onwww.seabean.com

• The Little Book of Sea-Beans and Other BeachTreasures, Cathie Katz and Paul Mikkelsen, a pocketguide available through the sea bean Web site.

• World Guide to Tropical Drift Seeds and Fruits,Charles R. Gunn and John V. Dennis, revisededition, 1999, Krieger Publishing Co., P.O. Box9542, Melbourne, FL, 32902-9542; phone:321/724-9542; www.krieger-publishing.com.

• Sea Beans from the Tropics, Edward L. Perryand John V. Dennis, 2003, Krieger Publishing Co.,P.O. Box 9542, Melbourne, FL, 32902-9542;phone: 321/724-9542; www.krieger-publishing.com.

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that spin away from the main axis of flow,” saysLarry Cahoon, a North Carolina Sea Grantresearcher specializing in biological oceanographyat the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

“The force of the stream also createscounterclockwise-moving flows in the coastalbays, such as Onslow Bay, the shelf watersbetween Capes Lookout and Fear,” Cahoon says.“The Gulf Stream meanders that get entrained inthe counterclockwise flows in shelf waters carrytropical water and flotsam inshore at CapeLookout, which is why we see lots of tropicalstuff in that area.”

Near Hatteras, the Gulf Stream veers awayfrom the coast, and conflicting currents tend topush floating objects out to sea. But manyvariables of wind and current can bring sea beansand other surprises from far-flung shores onto thebeach almost anywhere.

Even at Cape Lookout, sea beans aresomething special. “You may find them onceduring the season when winds are right or stormsare right or you just happen to be in the rightplace,” says Cape Lookout National Seashorepark ranger Karen Duggan. “They’re wonderfullittle reminders of things to the South. We justdon’t get them often.”

A MESSAGE IN A BEANWhy sea beans travel so far from the

tropics, when they cannot survive cold climates,is nature’s secret. Perhaps the plants areexpanding their range by indiscriminatelysending seeds to sea, equipped for a long andwet passage. Some float because of a light-weight, fibrous coating; others have an airpocket inside a casing so hard that earlyScandinavians thought sea beans were stones.

Whatever their reasons for their longjourneys, sea beans continue to intrigue theirfinders, just as they have for centuries.

“Sea beans are among those things thatregularly — not ten times a week but at least afew times a year — somebody will bring in andsay, ‘What is this?’ ” says Bob Patton, educationcurator at the North Carolina Aquarium at PineKnoll Shores. He himself has found a fewknown sea beans, and a large, mysteriousseedpod he has not yet identified.

A sea bean on the beach, he says, holds thesame sort of mystique as a message in a bottle.

“You wonder how long has it beenout there,” he says, “and where did it comefrom?”

TOP: Sea heart sea beansBOTTOM: Sea Purse sea beans

TOP: Sea bean pod and seeds.BOTTOM: Golf Ball sea beans.

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