Without them, the sea will wash across the island, cutting new inlets and chewing away the shore. Under normal conditions, a barrier beach loses some of its sand to winter storms, but the sand is replenished from offshore bars the following summer. A barrier island can be a place of extremes, baking hot in summer, frigid in winter, swept by the wind in all seasons. Still, life abounds. Other life forms are more furtive.
Ghost crabs live in holes dug in the sand near the dunes, emerging at night to search for prey.
Sand hoppers, also active in the dark, spend the day dug into wet sand along the tide line. Marine worms, ghost shrimp, pea crabs, mole crabs, sea urchins, sand dollars, and coquina clams also populate the zone between low and high tides. All have gone below, and in burrows, tubes, and underground chambers the hidden life of the sand is lived. The turnover of biological materials is swift. A dolphin, washed ashore by the tide, is pecked open at eyes, vent, and blowhole by gulls, worried by a wandering raccoon, picked apart by the gulls and crabs.