Click me for today’s pictures…
We all piled into the car with towels, chairs, food and a bunch of beach toys our nice neighbor lady loaned us (she has grandkids…) and head for the Half Moon Bay area. We wound up at the James V Fitzgerald Marine Reserve, where we learned about the no-bucket rule at the reserve. It makes it too tempting to gather plants and animals, the ranger told us.
Naturally, since we came to go tidepooling, high tide happened about an hour after we got to the reserve.
Most of the beach was blocked off for the big pod of pupping Harbor Seals, which was pretty cool. We essentially got a free course in harbor seal as the ranger explained them to everyone that came up on the cones.
We dug in the sand for treasures, buried Jordan at least 3 times and made a mermaid of him once. After a nap, I got up and wandered up the beach. Around a corner, it got rocky and interesting. I explored for a while and then went back to get the rest of the crew. After a quick lunch, we all went down to the rocky part of the beach with our guide book and spent a long time exploring and finding plants and animals and looking them up in the book with quite a bit of success.
After some time, we noticed the tide was going out and a lot of the tide pools were getting exposed, so off we went to do some tidepooling. I had fun with our waterproof camera taking pictures underwater which turned out to work pretty well – no reflections to worry about, for instance. One thing I learned is that the autofocus is more limited in range underwater (at least that’s my present conclusion), but some of the closeups came out really good. In a couple, I got a reflection from underwater off the top of the water.
Cold, tired and happy, off we went to Princeton harbor to have dinner at one of our favorite seafood dives. I’m not sure why it’s a favorite, as the food is pedestrian, high on the fried this and that content, but the view is nice and we’re always treated well.
Back home, Jordan was once again too tired to take a bath or shower before bed, so Dena slept with Mr Sand Monster again. It probably won’t be the last time…