On a couple of coastal walks during the last three days we have seen thousands of wooden planks as far as the eye can see on the beaches and rocks.  During severe weather on March 2 the cargo vessel ‘Frisian Lady’ lost 200 timber packages on the journey between Antwerp and Immingham.  Some of the timber was recovered at sea and the rest of the bundles have broken up into individual planks in various sizes up to 5m long and four days ago have been washed ashore on the coast between Eyemouth just north of the English border and St Andrews in Fife.  Police have urged the public not to attempt to salvage any of the timber themselves, as apart from possibly being dangerous to do so, it’s a criminal offence to keep lost cargo.  Also after having been saturated with salt water, the timber is not suitable for use as a building material.  It will be a mammoth operation to clear and must have been a great danger to boats.  It shows the power of the wind and tides when seeing how far it has travelled from the route of the ship.
The extra is of a huge bit of cartilage which was attached to skin.  Perhaps someone can identify it but I wondered if it comes from a whale.