visit to the tidepools
there was a king tide recently, which i guess means the tide also went out with equal drama. some friends and i visited the local tidepools on sunday to check out the sea life.
it's funny that visiting tidepools is an entire activity. my brother pointed out afterward that we didn't have to do it--other animals don't travel for miles just to go tidepooling. we sure love novelty.
i like tidepools. the first time i visited one of the local sets was also the first time i'd ever touched anemones and sea stars.
this trip was the first time i went to the other set of pools. the landscape here is more dramatic. coming down towards them the long way, you have to go down a steep hill--looking back at the hill when i got to the bottom made me think of the early part of aguirre, the wrath of god, with the tiny figures on hairpin mountain turns.
the weather was pretty overcast, but not hazy. sunlight came through the thinner patches of cloud. visibility to the channel islands was very good.
inventory, 1/3/26: limpets, snails, crabs (hermit and non-hermit), nudibranchs, sea slugs, anemones, sea stars, barnacles, seagrass, gulls, pelicans, fish shaped like mudskippers (1/8" long). i looked for octopuses, but couldn't find any--only people who said they'd seen one. ah well.
the nudibranchs looked like miniature clumps of big league chew. i found out later these are called hopkin's rose nudibranchs. one big sea slug looked like an egg served sunny side up. still can't find the species. maybe someday.