Last night around 10pm there was a very low tide in the sound so I went with a friend down to the beach to explore. It was a strange experience for me to be out at such low tide at night. I am used to the really low tides being early in the morning, which is how I always remember it being where I grew up.
Megan is a lot more knowledgeable about intertidal stuff than I am, so it was fun to look around with her. Most of our exploring focused on and around largish rocks sitting down near the water (I guess they would normally be covered if the tide weren't so low). There were lots of interesting things to see: starfish, gumboots, crab (even a couple of dungeness), worms, anenomes, sea cucumber (which I'd never before seen in the wild), and a nudibranch (which I'd never before seen outside of pictures). There was also a heron in the water, apparently hunting, which was unexpected as I wouldn't have thought a cloudy night would be a very good hunting time for them.
2 comments:
The fall/winter lowest tides are at night. The spring/summer lowest tides are in the morning. I remember going out at least once at night to look for sand dollars at Sandy Beach when we were growing up. I don't remember if you were there are or not.
Interesting. I don't remember going out to look for sand dollars at night, guess I was too young then. I suppose crabbing season and sea week in elementary school were in the spring which were the primary times I did anything dealing with low tides.
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