THE PHI SPIRAL

"Orelhas" if you're Portuguese, or "Orejitas" if you're Spanish.

I was introduced to these little wonders on a tiny beach at Sines (pronounced Seensh) in Portugal by a bright-eyed 7/8 year old girl. I was fossicking about on the tideline looking for treasure & she just came up & showed me one of these. "Orelhas", she said. Managed to find three or four for myself. I was hooked!

A few years later in Barbate on the Spanish Atlantic coast I was shown an even tinier beach which proved to be a veritable Eldorado. The Andalusian name turned out to be "Orejitas".

Learned that they are the trapdoors which a certain knobbly sea-snail uses to protect their succulent parts from Atlantic storms.

Led me to a relentless research of the Golden Section, the Fibonacci series & the Phi Spiral...