low tide

Sometimes it is easy to see why people come to California from all over the world. Sometimes you can be overwhelmed by all of the possibilities of every thing that there is to see here, that you can miss the little things that makes Los Angeles great. Sometimes it is months before I see the ocean.

That is just too long.

Today I went to Malibu Lagoon to explore the tide pools at low tide. Low tide happens everyday, few days are optimal and even fewer of those are on a weekend. So take those four days and think about which of those days you would like to sit in beach traffic and that leaves one day. Today was that one day.

Exploring the tide pools is like exploring an alien planet as a giant. Sometimes you step on things and it is unavoidable.

Anemone are everywhere in packs or schools curled up like flowers until water hits them, then they open up to try to catch their prey. The tentacles are poisonous to small creatures, but not to you. If you touch them, they pull themselves into these mounds, that kind of look like donuts. It is hard to capture the colors of these animals. Crystalline greens, silvery creams, pinks, purples and colors I don't think that there are names for yet. If you click to open this photo, you can probably get a better idea of their color spectrum. These things make me wish that I had a better camera.

You have to climb further out over treacherous rocks to see the good stuff like:

Lazy Sea Stars in oranges and purples.
Which when I was young we called them Star Fish. But I guess since they are not fish so they have a new name.
(Pluto will always be a planet to me too)

ps I hate when people pick these up and carry them around

Also further out toward the ocean are this crazy things called spouts that are basically animals that filter sea water for food and then spit the water out at you. I wish that I could have gotten a photo, but they do not spit on queue.

Please do not step on the cute purple spiny urchins. It will hurt, plus you will have to go to the hospital.

We also saw Sea Hares , a couple of crabs spending sometime together that I can only explain as TV MA, plus an old friend pictured below-I guess I am not the only Minnesota transplant here.

(Great Heron)

This is one of the greatest things I have done here, but hey I am a nerd. So, if you want to get your nerd on, go explore tide pools during low tide.

It is these little things that make Los Angeles great.