Reach the beach

It's been two weeks since we took the girls to the beach and far too long to post these photos.

Our first trip in about a year took place during one of the lowest tides in years. A -2 tide. It promised to expose all sorts of sea life that so far Claire had only seen in one of her books.

We headed for Oceanside and found the hallmark rock outcropping of our favorite beach completely exposed. This rocky tip usually is buffeted by waves. Normally, we'd have to walk through a tunnel to get to the other side. Not this day. We simply walked around it, stopping to look at the mussels and barnacles harpooned to its lower walls.







A local brought her kids and their shovels and began prying the mussels off the rocks. I cursed myself for not thinking of bringing one along myself. Nothing like fresh, hand-harvested mussels.



A day later, the state fish & wildlife department closed the mussel harvest because of an illness among these shellfish that threaten humans who eat them.



The girls continued to explore this rocky point, bending down to get a close look at the sea anemones clinging to the base of the wall.



Claire made us all aware of the various shapes of seaweed and jellyfish she found along the wet beach.



I'd never seen the water so low. It exposed rocky swaths in the sandy beach that I never knew existed. These were in what I later learned was the low intertidal zone. Here's an example of one of the many tidepools we could peer above on this special day.



Paige looks skeptical.



Claire looks thrilled.



Eventually, we found the people we aimed to meet here: Mark, Sophie and Ella.



The gentle breeze, smell of sea salt, rhythmic waves and squawking gulls eventually washed the shyness off Sophie's face.



The youngest, born a month apart, did their best to get a good feel of the sand, stones and pebbles.







Something in the coming tide made us all a bit loopy. Here, Mark tries to shake some change out of Ella's ears.



Eventually, the tide marched back in. We made our way back through the tunnel since the surf already was threatening to strands us up against the rocky point. While the older girls built a sandcastle and Sarah flew a kite, Paige found her own hole and sat in it.








Yep, Paige. Time to go. Maybe we'll come back for the next low tide.