Tide Pools

Quick trip to Shell Beach at low tide 1035 hrs on Friday. Tide was only at 0.1. Two schools were there, one class on each side of the beach. I mainly went to check how the seaweeds were doing and to see if I could find any sea stars. The seaweeds were more robust but less varied. I saw no cystoseira at all, very little kombu or sea lettuce, no wakame (that's probably a good thing) and less feather boa and Turkish towel than I'd seen before. I forgot to look carefully for any sea palm in the distance, but didn't happen to see any. Nori/Laver was doing very well, covering many boulders. Saw other species that I wouldn't generally collect but practiced ID'ing them. Lots of small anemones on the rocks, but the only large one I found open I photographed. Usually I see more. Also, I didn't see a single sea star. Last visit I found three, which was very low. I'd like to learn more about the disease taking out the sea stars. This trip didn't seem all that rich overall; it could have been that I was moving too quickly past each pool, trying to stay ahead of the loud and destructive groups of kids, but it seemed like a less productive walk than usual. I only stayed a little more than an hour, picking up the trash left behind from the kids in the tide pools and decided to leave.

Posted on April 26, 2015 07:11 AM by bjoelle