Low Tide

A few days ago were the lowest tides of the year! Well, I'm not sure of that, but they were the lowest tides for this summer.
I love low tide. As a kid living in the Gulf Islands my mother used to let me skip school to explore the low tides together. We'd go down to Boat Nook or Thieves Bay and crawl on the exposed rocks. It was always a big event if we found a gumboot chiton or even exposed purple starfish.
This year's tides were pretty early in the morning, but they fell on a Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.
On Saturday morning my wife was too sleepy to come with me, so I scooted on my flip-flops and grabbed the camera. We live just a block from Ucluelet Harbour and I wanted to get a chance to walk under the abandoned fish plant at the end of the road. The tide was super low! All sorts of hidden underwater hazards were exposed, making the usually smooth water of the harbour seem positively dangerous. It was possible to walk within about 4 feet of the floating dock where it's dredged for extra depth. The term "walk" is euphemistic here, as what I really did was pick my way down on the incredibly soft (yet sharp) hash of rocks, shells, mud, and glass whilst trying to keep my feet from sliding off my wet el cheapo flip-flops. This footwear was giving me serious doubts. Buried clams were squirting water in the air as my weight disturbed them.

The other unused fish plant looked like the daddy of all long legs on those stilts. The pilings have to be really long so that the big hake boats can offload, but seeing them high and dry is sort of scary.
This bad boy (actually, I think they might be hermaphroditic) with the mohawk is a mossy chiton (Mopalia muscosa) looking a little bedraggled. It is another species you don't usually get to see unless you strap a big aluminum cylinder to your back. There were also tons of all sorts of starfish...sunstars in a big gloopy mess, bat-stars peeling off the pilings, one blood star in the water, and of course lots of purple sea stars. This one is a special ninja throwing shuriken sea star.

Also present was a Pink sea star (Pisaster brevispinus, bottom image) that was almost like zombie flesh.

There isn't a whole lot of stuff in a habitat like this. It was time to get a look at some other tidal areas.

The banner photo at the beginning of this blog is a panorama shot taken from in front of the Ucluelet Aquarium about 10 minutes after the lowest point of the tide. My low tide adventure was just beginning, though...there will be part 2 in the next post.