Worlds Wash Ashore
How do you know you’re a beachcombing geek? When you stop to stare at a kelp holdfast on a beach for so long you arrive late to a...
Of Typhoons and Tides
The day before Typhoon Songda hammered the coast, I went to Oswald West to survey the scene. From atop what I've dubbed the Cliffs of...
Deep Time in the Tidelands
"An abstract, intellectual understanding of deep time comes easily enough—I know how many zeros to place after the 10 when I mean...
Death Star
At the ocean’s edge, competition for food and space is fierce. But the intertidal zone also serves up stunning examples of cooperation....
The Moon Above
When I travel into the tidelands, the moon is often on my mind. Without the moon, there would be no sea slugs attacking hydroids, no...
To Boldly Go To New Oceans
Between tidepooling sessions I’ve been reading about Proxima b, a newly discovered planet orbiting the star closest to our sun. Good...
Stranger than Science Fiction
Novelist John Steinbeck's best friend was Ed Ricketts, a marine biologist and pioneering ecologist who published Between Pacific Tides....
Master of Disguise
Like an octopus, the tidepool sculpin, Oligocottus maculatus, can change color to blend with its background. The sculpin's chameleon...
Eyes are Watching
Today a man hurried toward the Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) truck to tell us he'd "found a stingray." Maybe a bat ray? Or a...
Wondrous Slug
The first sea slug I saw at the ocean's edge was an opalescent nudibranch, Hermissenda crassicornis. I have since spotted many nudibranch...
