It starts like this, a lagoon where the creek meets the sea.

Then a storm rolls in and the rain comes down, the creek floods and all hell breaks loose.

For a few days it looks like this, the channel dug by the storm waters sometimes reaching four or five feet high.

Then the waves roll in and the winds blow through and it's rearranged, all of it, in increments.

The channel narrows.

Then it vanishes.

Until a tide like the one this morning breaks near shore, breaches the pond and fills it, even as it deposits the sand that, grain by grain, will seal it off and start the whole cycle over again.