Exploring the Intertidal

A negative low tide opens the whole shoreline up, and we walk straight out of camp into it.

Price$35 each

Length1.5 hours

Group4 to 10

SeasonYear round, tide-dependent

Leaves fromCamp, on foot

Laguna Point is about fifteen minutes up the old Haul Road from camp, and at a negative low tide it turns into the best classroom on this coast. The water pulls right back off a wide rocky bench and leaves pool after pool of it behind, and there is a great deal more living in there than anybody expects.

We’ll work the pools from the high zone down, which is the order the tide leaves them in, and everything gets a name as we go. Anemones, hermit crabs, limpets, turban snails, rock crabs, bat stars, and chitons that have sat in the same spot for thirty years. Get your eyes down close to the water and the whole thing changes scale on you.

There are usually harbor seals out on the offshore rocks, and sea lions and otters turn up along this coast as well, though they move around with the weather and the season so nobody can promise you any of them. Same with the birds, which on a good morning means gulls, cormorants, pelicans, oystercatchers and a great many ravens.

Nothing goes home from this one. Everything goes back exactly where it came from, which is the only rule out there. It’s a lovely hour and a half, it’s good for all ages, and if you’d rather take something back for the table, that’s the Intertidal Forage.

When we go

Low tide sets the time, so it moves around. These are the next days we can get out on the rocks.

Day	Meet at camp
Sat 12 September	5:55 pm
Sat 26 September	4:48 pm
Sun 27 September	5:29 pm
Thu 8 October	3:28 pm
Fri 9 October	4:14 pm
Sat 10 October	4:56 pm

What we’ll do

The tide sets the time rather than the clock, so it moves every day.

Meet at the fire pit, fifteen or twenty minutes before the low
Up the Haul Road to Laguna Point, about fifteen minutes
Down onto the bench, and the high pools first
Work down with the water as it drops
A last look at the low zone as the tide turns
Back at camp

What is included

Your guide, hand lenses, and identification cards to keep.

What to bring

Shoes that can get wet, and a layer. It's colder out on the rocks than it is at camp.

Good to know

Scheduled against the tide chart rather than the clock, so the meeting time changes daily. We'll agree the day once you've booked.
All ages, with children accompanied by an adult. Under 5 come free.
Nothing is collected on this one. If you'd like to take something home, that's the Intertidal Forage.
There's a wheelchair-accessible boardwalk on the route. Tell us and we'll use it.

Photographs

Pick your day and we’ll be there.

Choose a date below and your guide is booked with it. If we have to cancel, for weather or a tide that won’t cooperate or anything else at our end, you choose: another date, or your money back.