The thing on the beach

Down at the end of the beach Blasina was poking something with a long stick. Gingerly, as though it might spring up and bite.

We placed the beach towels in our usual spot and prepared for the morning swim. By the time we were organised Blasina had been joined by a couple more people, one of whom had taken charge of the poking stick. Nobody seemed prepared to get too close to whatever it was.

Naturally, I wandered over to see what was going on. As a general rule this is poor survival strategy - if there's something that needs poking with a stick it's best to walk away rather than towards. However, wildlife on this benign little island is mostly of the cuddly or edible kind. There are a few biting flies but nothing you need to fend off with a chair.

From a distance, the thing on the beach looked like a mound of wet, brown liver. Close up, it still looked like a mound of wet, brown liver. Blasina nodded in greeting as I joined the group, now grown to half a dozen onlookers. One of the Council workers weeding the roadside flower beds had arrived with a rake and sickle in hand, but Blasina warded him off. 'Está vivo,' she told him, it's alive.

Another of the regular swimmers, a lady with more courage than caution, took up a large flat pebble and began investigating the pile of liver more closely. She tried to prise it open. It unfolded a little but retracted as soon as the pebble left it alone.

There followed one of those uncomfortable interludes in which everyone waits for someone else to do something. Living creatures do get washed up on the island's beaches occasionally, but it's not a regular occurrence and people usually call the Guardia Civil to come and sort things out. They would contact one of the organisations that specialise in relaunching stranded dolphins or offering comfort to confused baby gulls.

On this occasion, however, nobody seemed inclined to call the Guardia Civil and inform them there was a pile of wet brown liver on the beach.

Distressingly often, what gets washed up if it's lucky, or more probably sinks without fuss to the bottom of the ocean, is a creature that has mistaken a plastic bag for a jellyfish and eaten it. Turtles do that. So do some of the fish. They eat the plastic and it clogs up their innards, slowly killing them.

And despite the best efforts of the Council's cleanup squads it's not uncommon to see an escaped supermarket bag flying out to sea on a gusting northerly wind, a lethal kite waiting to kill a turtle. Which is why I have developed a mild obsession for trying to catch them. 'Look mummy, there's that man who chases plastic bags and crisp packets!'

But I'm not the only one. (John Lennon, Imagine). There are other beach regulars who will try to retrieve any floating plastic bags or bottles they come across, to deposit them safely in a waste bin.

In sharp contrast, I once watched someone's beach umbrella flying seawards on those same northerly winds. It briefly touched down just in front of a lady, a foreign visitor, who was doing her anti-cholesterol march along the shoreline. She avoided the umbrella and marched on, leaving it to tumble into the sea and set off towards Tenerife floating handle-up like a coracle. The owner plunged in and managed to catch it, but the point of this story is, how could anyone...

What? Oh right, the thing on the beach. Another Council worker, older, wiser and probably a weekend fisherman, bent over the glistening lump, unfolded it carefully with a gloved hand, stood up and pronounced: 'It's a choco.' A cuttlefish.

I can recognise a choco when I see it on my dinner plate but it doesn't look anything like that. Perhaps because this one was much bigger than anything a restaurant would serve up, and its tentacles were hidden somewhere underneath, and it had covered itself in brown ink.

In fact it could have been just about any kind of squid because nearly all of them will squirt ink when feeling anxious, in shades ranging from deep black or bluish to the dull brown of this one.

How had it got itself into such a predicament? Chasing something smaller, that cleverly led it into the shallows? Fleeing from something bigger out there in the bay? Or was it, perhaps, unwisely tempted by a plastic-bag jellyfish floating among the breakers?

The Council guys moved in with spades and an empty fertilizer bag. With great care, they manoeuvred the thing onto the bag then transported it back to its home environment, wading knee-deep to gently release it. I didn't see it swim away but neither did it wash up on the beach again, so let's hope it lived happily ever after.